Dominica has suffered “widespread damage” from Hurricane Maria, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit says.
“We have lost all that money can buy,” he said in a Facebook post.
The hurricane suddenly strengthened to a “potentially catastrophic” category five storm, before making landfall on the Caribbean island.
Earlier Mr Skerrit had posted live updates as his own roof was torn off, saying he was “at the complete mercy of the hurricane”.
The series of Facebook posts by Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit captured the fury of the storm as it made landfall on the mountainous island.
“The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God,” Skerrit wrote at the start of a series of increasingly harrowing posts.
A few minutes later, he messaged he could hear the sound of galvanized steel roofs tearing off houses on the small rugged island.
He then wrote that he thought his home had been damaged. And three words: “Rough! Rough! Rough!”
A half hour later, he said: “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.” Seven minutes later he posted that he had been rescued.
“My greatest fear for the morning is that we will wake to news of serious physical injury and possible deaths as a result of likely landslides triggered by persistent rains,” he wrote after being rescued.
Maria is moving roughly along the same track as Irma, the hurricane that devastated the region this month.
It currently has maximum sustained winds of 250km/h (155mph) and has been downgraded to a category four hurricane after hitting Dominica, but it could increase again as it moves towards Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, according to forecasters.
The storm was on a path that would take it near many of the islands already wrecked by Hurricane Irma and then on toward Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Maria could hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday, said Ernesto Morales with the U.S. National Weather Service in San Juan.
“This storm promises to be catastrophic for our island,” he said. “All of Puerto Rico will experience hurricane force winds.”
University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy says one key sign of Maria’s growing strength is what center forecasters call “the dreaded pinhole eye.” Maria’s eye has shrunk to 10 miles in diameter — a smaller, tighter eye makes the hurricane spin faster.
McNoldy says meteorologists saw a similar pinhole eye when Hurricane Wilma set a record for lowest central pressure — a key measure of storm power — in 2005.
President Trump approved an emergency declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands ahead of Maria, ordering federal assistance to aid the response effort, the White House said in a statement Monday. The action authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate disaster relief efforts.
“FEMA is authorized to identify, mobilize, and provide, at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency,” the statement said.