Because of the passage of Tropical Storm Bret, St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) will be completely shut down beginning at 6 p.m. on Thursday.
Acting Prime Minister Montgomery Daniel announced in a national speech on NBC Radio shortly before 4 p.m. Thursday that as of 2 p.m. today, SVG was under a tropical storm warning after the hurricane hunter researching the storm discovered the center to be at a lower latitude.
At 2 p.m. today, the center of Tropical Storm Bret was located at 13.4 degrees north and 58.9 degrees west, or approximately 150 miles east of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour and stronger gusts. The current trend is westward.
As a result of this:
All schools and government offices will be closed immediately.
From 6 p.m. today, the country will be completely shut down, including all enterprises.
Only critical services such as the police, health care, and utilities will report to work as directed by their respective departments.
At 6 p.m. today, all emergency shelters will be activated.
The National Emergency Management Organisation’s (NEMO) Operations Centre will go live at 6 p.m. today.
According to the acting Prime Minister, the tropical storm warning means that sustained winds of 39 – 73 mph / 63 – 118 kph are likely in our area within 24 hours. These conditions are predicted to persist across the northern portion of the island by tonight and throughout St Vincent and the Grenadines on Friday.
The outer bands of TS Bret will occasionally cause moderate heavy showers, periods of rainfall, isolated thunderstorms, and strong gusty winds to hit SVG. Rainfall accumulations of 3-6 inches (75-150 mm) are expected across our islands, with isolated greater amounts.
He said Tropical Storm Bret has the potential to produce heavy rainfall, which can result in life threatening flash floods, landslides and lahars.
