Melis­sa Doughty

Trop­i­cal Storm Isaac is ex­pect­ed to be­come a hur­ri­cane tonight as it swirls through the east­ern Caribbean. Sev­er­al is­lands are cur­rent­ly un­der storm warn­ing and felt the ef­fects of the rain bands of Isaac by 11 am yes­ter­day ac­cord­ing to Me­te­o­rol­o­gist Sha­keer Baig, Ag Chief Me­te­o­rol­o­gist.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Baig said: "At 11 am the rain bands as­so­ci­at­ed with Trop­i­cal Storm Isaac start­ed spread­ing through the Less­er An­tilles. At this time there is a trop­i­cal storm warn­ing for Mar­tinique, Do­mini­ca, Guade­loupe and the sur­round­ing is­lands and Saint Mar­tin."

The warn­ing, he said, was al­so in ef­fect for St Kitts, Nevis, An­tigua, Bar­bu­da, Montser­rat, An­guil­la, the British Vir­gin Is­lands (BVI), the US Vir­gin Is­lands and Puer­to Ri­co. Baig said the warn­ing meant these coun­tries will ex­pe­ri­ence trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions with­in 36 hours. At the time of the in­ter­view, he said, the lead­ing edge of the storm made land­fall in New Guade­loupe.

As a con­se­quence, the is­lands, from St Kitts to St Vin­cent and even Bar­ba­dos ex­pe­ri­enced over­cast con­di­tions with heavy rain­fall. The storm's max­i­mum sus­tained winds are es­ti­mat­ed at 75 km/h with high­er gusts. The trop­i­cal storm watch, which means trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions are pos­si­ble with­in 48 hours, is in ef­fect for the north­ern coast of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic mov­ing all the way to Saona (an is­land lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance from the main­land on the south-east tip of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic).

The hur­ri­cane watch, he said, is in ef­fect for Puer­to Ri­co and the US and British Vir­gin Is­lands. He al­so added, Cu­ba was close­ly mon­i­tor­ing the progress of the storm. In and in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Nik­isha Smith, an An­tiguan said as a con­se­quence of the warn­ing, gov­ern­ment and pri­vate sec­tor work­ers were sent home at mid-day. Peo­ple, she said, stocked up on wa­ter, canned goods and crack­ers and that shel­ters were opened in an­tic­i­pa­tion of flood­ing.