HMCS St. John’s Commander, Gordon Noseworthy, leads crew members in assessing Hurricane's Irma's damage to Roseau, Dominica, September 24, 2017.MCpl Chris Ringius
While the direct threats from Irma and Maria have now receded, 70 Canadians are still in need of help in areas affected by the two powerful hurricanes, Global Affairs Canada said Tuesday.
Maria struck the small Caribbean island of Dominica a week ago, then swept through Puerto Rico, leaving survivors with no water, electricity or reliable communications.
More than 6,000 Canadians had to leave the area because of Maria, including 242 people in Dominica, Global Affairs said in a statement.
The department didn't provide a breakdown or more details about the 70 Canadians requiring assistance.
However, it said the figure included six Canadian medical students at All Saints University, in Dominica's capital, Roseau. Global Affairs said it was working with university officials to arrange the departure of the six students.
Global Affairs said 83 other Canadians studying at another school in Dominica, the Ross University School of Medicine, boarded a ship Tuesday morning, headed for the island of St. Lucia where they could fly out of the region.
Some of those who left were taken by Canadian Armed Forces aircraft.
"Response to the storm by the Canadian government has been pathetic," said David Banks, a Canadian teacher in London whose wife and two children were stranded on Dominica and were eventually airlifted by the British military.
Mr. Banks noted that as late as Monday, Global Affairs e-mailed an advisory to stranded Canadians, notifying them that U.S. military flights were arriving to Dominica to help remove foreigners. "Canadians may be able to board the flights," the e-mail said, urging them to make their way to the Douglas-Charles Airport.
Canadian sailors said they located several Canadian citizens in Dominica Monday, who have been repatriated aboard a Hercules military aircraft.
The sailors are part of the 230-member crew of the Halifax-based frigate HMCS St. John's, which arrived Sunday in Dominica.
The captain of the warship said the island has suffered near total devastation.
"It's a volcanic island, which was at one time rich in tropical rain forest," Commander Gord Noseworthy said via satellite phone from aboard the ship Tuesday. "Unfortunately it's near total devastation … it's completely wiped out.
"The streets are filled with debris from the upper mountain ridge," he said. "There is sand and silt all over the streets … literally there are cars nearly buried in the sand and silt."
He said locals are growing increasingly desperate a week after the hurricane struck the island, knocking out electricity and running water.
"There is minimal electricity," Cmdr. Noseworthy said. "The power grid has been partially restored in the capital. But for the outlying villages there is no electricity, only generators for those folks lucky enough to have one."
The real crisis, however, is the lack of safe drinking water, he said.
"A lot of the water that they have has been contaminated due to the flooding from the significant rainfall."
Meanwhile on Puerto Rico, more than 3.4 million U.S. citizens still lack adequate food, water and fuel five days after Maria pounded the island as a Category 4 hurricane, and officials said electrical power may not be fully restored for more than a month.
President Donald Trump hailed his administration on Tuesday for a "really good job" helping Puerto Rico recover from the devastation of Hurricane Maria, despite complaints that federal aid has been too slow to reach the U.S. territory.
Mr. Trump agreed to boost federal disaster aid to the island, increasing funding to assist with debris removal and emergency protective measures. He said he would visit Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands on Oct. 3.
Critics and some of Puerto Rico's residents accused the U.S. government of having been slower to respond with water, food and electric grid repairs than it would have been on the mainland, even though the island's people are U.S. citizens. (A new poll by Morning Consult found that only 54 per cent of Americans know that people born in the U.S. territory are American citizens.)
"We've gotten A-pluses on Texas and in Florida, and we will also on Puerto Rico," Mr. Trump told reporters in Washington. "The difference is this is an island sitting in the middle of an ocean. It's a big ocean, it's a very big ocean. And we're doing a really good job."
About 44 per cent of Puerto Rico's population currently lacks access to clean drinking water, the U.S. Defence Department said.
Many residents were still struggling to get basic essentials.
"We've not seen any help. Nobody's been out asking what we need or that kind of thing," said Maria Gonzalez, 74, in the Santurce district of the capital, San Juan.
Help appeared to be reaching parts of the city, she said, pointing to Condado, a tourist area powered by generators while other San Juan streets fall into darkness at dusk.
"There's plenty of electricity over there, but there's nothing in the poor areas," Ms. Gonzalez said.
Staff with reports from The Canadian Press, Associated Press and Reuters