CARIBBEAN – Tropical Storm Fay lashed Bermuda on Saturday night and early Sunday morning leaving residents without power and roads blocked with debris.  The Bermuda Weather Service unofficially recorded sustained winds of 115 miles per hour and higher gusts.

Emergency services and construction crews have been cleaning up and restoring electricity throughout the island.  The Ministry of National Security on Sunday reported that several roads remained impassable and the Acting Premier urged residents to remain at home to allow clean-up crews to carry on unobstructed with the removal of debris.   

There are reports of some property damage, but a proper assessment still has to be carried out.  The City of Hamilton was also battered by the tropical storm.  Some buildings in the capital have sustained major damage.  

Two cruise ships were forced to delay their arrival on Sunday.  If weather conditions improve, and after an assessment of the berths and channels, the vessels may still dock.

The Terminal Building at LF Wade International Airport has reportedly experienced major flooding from the passing of the tropical storm.  The airfield is open for emergency services, diversions and private jets. Flights to the island are on rolling delays.  Outbounds passengers cannot leave due to the flooding of the Immigration and Customs Halls. The authorities are working diligently to resolve the issues and challenges at hand. 

ARCHIVED: As of 11.00PM on Saturday, TS Fay is 95 miles south of Bermuda.  Besides the weather impact from TS Fay on Bermuda, the storm has led to the cancellation of American Airlines Saturday evening flight out of New York JFK.  

Winds have been picking up and weather conditions are expected to further deteriorate during the course of Saturday night.  There has been no diversions with respect to cruise vessels.  One cruise vessel, the Explorer of the Seas left at its scheduled time on Saturday.  The Norwegian Dawn and Grandeur of the Seas are still scheduled to call at Port Bermuda on Sunday, however this is all dependent on weather conditions on Sunday morning.  

ARCHIVED: Saturday - The Bermuda Weather Service has now issued a Hurricane Watch for the island which means hurricane conditions are possible within 12 hours.  TS Fay at 5.00PM was located 195 miles south of the island.  Wind speed is 70 miles per hour, but the system has picked up speed and is moving at 18 miles per hour towards the north. This motion is expected to continue into Saturday night.   

ARCHIVED: Saturday - At 11.00AM TS Fay winds now at 70 miles per hour is close to hurricane strength.  TS Fay is 305 miles south of Bermuda and continues to track north towards the island nation at 16 miles per hour.  TS force winds extend outward from the center up to 150 miles.

ARCHIVED: At 8.00AM on Saturday morning TS Fay was approximately 365 miles south of the island of Bermuda.  Weather conditions are forecasted to start deteriorating in Bermuda Saturday afternoon with an increase in winds across the islands.  TS Fay has maximum winds of 60 miles per hour.  The storm is moving at 12 miles per hour to the north.

A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for Bermuda.  An increase in forward speed is expected today followed by a turn to the north east.  On its current track TS Fay is expected to pass south east and east of Bermuda late Saturday and early Sunday.  An Air Force Weather Recon Aircraft is currently investigating the system.

ARCHIVED: At 5.00pm on Friday, the NHC upgraded TD#7 to TS Fay after reconnaissance aircraft found that the sub-tropical system had strengthened.  Wind speeds are 40 miles per hour and the system is moving north northwest at 12 miles per hour.  TS Fay is 525 miles south of the island of Bermuda. 

Additional strengthening is possible during the next 48 hours.

ARCHIVED: The Nathional Hurricane Center (NHC) has upgraded a Tropical Wave system to Sub-Tropical Depression (TD) #7 which is located north of the Leeward Islands in the Atlantic Ocean heading towards the island of Bermuda.  TD#7 according to NHC is forecast to become Tropical Storm Fay later today, the seasons sixth storm.

Bermuda's Weather Service has already issued a Tropical Storm Watch.  TD#7 is moving northwest at 10 miles per hour and highest winds are 35 miles per hour.  

ARCHIVED: Weather Watchers have been reviewing the computer models that forecast inclement weather, and some models are developing the scenario that tropical storm development will take place between October 9^th and 15^th in the south western or western Caribbean Sea.

A Low Pressure (LP) system is expected to form north of Panama and some computer models have it developing into a Tropical Storm (TS) by October 14^th.  Should this happen, this will be the sixth storm of the season, and it would be named Fay.

If the LP develops according to the models into TS Fay, it would travel across the western Caribbean Sea into the Gulf of Mexico and then across the Florida Peninsula by October 17^th/18^th.  

Weather watchers will continue to monitor the long range computer models for any potential development of this system.

CARIBBEAN – As the head of the United Nations mission working to stop the Ebola outbreak continued his visit to hard-hit countries in West Africa, the world body’s humanitarian wing said funding for the international response is lagging, with only 26 per cent of the $988 million needed having been received thus far.

The situation in West Africa remains very disturbing, as more international assistance is needed to stem the tide of Ebola infections.  Caribbean countries are now very concerned with the first case of imported Ebola into the United States of America.  Caribbean governments have very limited resources to deal with an Ebola infected person and may soon have to take additional measures to protect public health within their own country.  In the meantime Caribbean health professionals from Cuba have arrived in West Africa.

The head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER), Anthony Banbury, was in Sierra Leone on Friday, 3^rd October on the second leg of his visit to the most affected countries, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York.

Mr. Banbury is in West Africa to jumpstart UNMEER’s work. After arriving at the mission’s headquarters in Accra, Ghana, earlier in the week of December 29^th, he spent the past two days assessing the situation in Liberia. In the week of 6^th October, he will travel on to Guinea.

Regarding the funding of the response, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that 26 per cent, or just $256 million, of the total $988 million needed, has been received.

An additional $163 million has been pledged to activities in the plan that covers immediate humanitarian support to the region, particularly Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

The UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has so far committed $13.4 million to support food and health operations as well as the regional humanitarian air service.

Meanwhile, in Geneva, the World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director, Denise Brown, briefed the press via audio link from the Liberian capital, Monrovia.

Despite best efforts, “the [Ebola] virus is running faster than the international community,” said Ms. Brown, adding that concerted efforts to get the virus under control had not succeeded- it was way ahead of us, she added.

Calling it an unprecedented situation, Ms. Brown urged the international community to take exceptional measures to collectively get in front of the virus and to stop it.

For its part, WFP is delivering food, planes, helicopters, ships, and flying in aid workers but the virus is spreading exponentially, and the response must increase accordingly. The agency is building two treatment centres in Monrovia which should be ready by the end of October with 400 beds. But several other components must align. For example, as treatments centres are build medical professionals need to come and staff them, she added.

She also expressed concern over increasing food prices, which WFP has been monitoring along with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). Both agencies are collecting data and are expected in a week to provide a snapshot of the food security situation.

INTERNATIONAL – The world is losing its mangroves at a faster rate than global deforestation, the United Nations revealed today, adding that the destruction of the coastal habitats was costing billions in economic damages and impacting millions of lives.

In a new report launched today at the 16th Global Meeting of the Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans, held in Athens, Greece, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)warned that the deforestation of the planet’s mangroves was exceeding average global forest loss by a rate of three to five times, resulting in economic damages of up to $42 billion annually and exposing ecosystems and coastal habitats to an increased risk of devastation from climate change.

“The escalating destruction and degradation of mangroves – driven by land conversion for aquaculture and agriculture, coastal development, and pollution – is occurring at an alarming rate, with over a quarter of the earth’s original mangrove cover now lost,” said UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.

“This has potentially devastating effects on biodiversity, food security and the livelihoods of some of the most marginalized coastal communities in developing countries, where more than 90 per cent of the world’s mangroves are found,” he added.

The Executive Director noted that mangroves – which are found in 123 countries around the world – provide ecosystem services worth up to $57,000 per hectare per year, storing carbon that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere and providing the over 100 million people who live in their vicinity with a variety of goods and services such as fisheries and forest products, clean water and protection against erosion and extreme weather events.

Mr. Steiner stressed that their continued destruction “makes neither ecological nor economic sense.”

In addition to the economic problems posed by mangrove deforestation, the report, entitledThe Importance of Mangroves: A Call to Action, also cautions that a continued reduction in the surface area of mangrove forests would inevitably expose coastal environments to the harmful effects of climate change.

In the Caribbean, for instance, mangrove-lined “hurricane holes” have functioned for centuries as safe-havens for boaters needing to ride out storms. Meanwhile, the complex network of mangrove roots can help reduce wave energy, limit erosion and form a critical barrier to the dangers posed by the strengthening tropical storms, cyclones and tsunamis which have been assailing coastal communities in recent years due to climate change.

In order to safeguard what UNEP calls “one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet,” the report outlines a number of financial mechanisms and incentives designed to stimulate conservation, including the creation of a Global Mangrove Fund, encouraging mangrove conservation and restoration through carbon credit markets, and promoting economic incentives as a source of local income from mangrove protection, sustainable use, and restoration activities.

Mr. Steiner admitted that it was important to present the survival of mangroves in real terms, underlining the economic impact their destruction would have on the local and global communities and pushing for greater international concern for their overall preservation.

“By quantifying in economic terms the value of the ecosystem services provided by mangroves as well as the critical role they play in global climate regulation, the report aims to encourage policymakers to use the tools and guidelines outlined to better ensure the conservation and sustainable management of mangroves.”

INTERNATIONAL – The steady build-up of garbage in the world’s oceans is a “tremendous challenge” and a growing threat to the planet’s marine ecosystems with the potential for “significant socio-economic consequences,” the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) heard on October 1, 2014.

In the final day of the 16th Global Meeting of the Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans, held in Athens, Greece, scientists, policymakers and delegates gathered amid growing global concern over the accumulation of plastic waste in oceans and seas – a problem that could pose an estimated $13 billion in damage to marine life and habitats, and which demands a comprehensive remedy.

Addressing the meeting, Jacqueline Alder, Coordinator of UNEP’s Freshwater and Marine Ecosystem Branch, applauded the creation of a “visioning roadmap” seeking to chart a way forward for oceans governance in the coming decade, particularly in the areas of extraction, governance, impacts of a changing climate, ocean acidification, and pollution.

“Making change related to ocean governance or management, especially where the issues are trans boundary, takes many years,”statedMs. Alder.

“Having the roadmap will keep all of us here, and those that follow us, focused on the outcomes we need to achieve in the coming decades.”

The meeting generated broad agreement among experts and policymakers regarding the issue of microplastics – tiny pieces of plastic less than one millimetre in size – which, they said, deserved more attention in order to better grasp their physical and biological impact on the marine ecosystems they pollute.

In addition, they advised a three-tier approach tackling marine litter at the national, regional and municipal levels as municipalities tends to have responsibility for solid-waste management.

The UNEP meeting coincides with the opening of a marine pollution-themed artistic installation adorning the lobby of the UN Headquarters in New York and entitled “The Garbage Patch State.”

The artwork is the creation of Italian artist, Maria Cristina Finucci, and was inspired by the five garbage patches, or gyres, that have amassed in the world’s oceans as plastic waste and other jettisoned materials are carried by the currents. The patches themselves now occupy a total of 15, 915, 933 square kilometres of ocean, threatening the marine environment and the plants and animals living within it.