Just received this:
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3:30 p.m. French official reports 2 dead
France's overseas minister is reporting at least two people are dead and two seriously injured after Irma crossed French-administered Saint Martin and St. Barthelemy.
In a translated report from French broadcaster
BFMTV, Annick Girardin said communications are just beginning to return and lessening winds will make air reconnaissance easier.
French President Emmanuel Macron says he expects that more victims and heavy damage will be discovered when Hurricane Irma has left the French West Indies.
Speaking at a crisis center set up at the Interior Ministry, Macron told reporters Wednesday night that while if it’s too early to give a precise toll and figures, he can already say “the toll will be harsh and cruel.”
Early reports suggested damage on parts of the smaller islands of the Caribbean -- a tropical region popular with tourists.
Barbuda, home to about 1,600 people, was "so badly damaged that there is no communication" from the island, said Keithley Meade, director of a meteorological office in Antigua and Barbuda.
"We have a lot of broken trees across the island," Meade said from Antigua, whose 80,000 people comprise most of the two-island nation's population.
Irma destroyed four of the most solid government buildings on the French-administered portion of nearby St. Martin, an island of about 75,000 people, French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb said Wednesday in Paris.
It's likely that all other older buildings there have at least been damaged, he said.
Roughly 10 of these smaller islands -- such as St. Martin, Antigua and Barbuda, and St. Kitts and Nevis -- were pounded by hurricane conditions. One, Guadeloupe, has about 405,000 residents. The rest have about 264,400 people combined."
