Richard Lord

One jour­nal­ist from T&T along with oth­er na­tion­als were left strand­ed in St Kitts af­ter the pas­sage of trop­i­cal storm Rafael on Sat­ur­day. Ra­dio jour­nal­ist An­drea Perez was among a small group of T&T?na­tion­als who at­tend­ed the Caribbean Tourism Or­gan­i­sa­tion con­fer­ence on the State of the In­dus­try from Oc­to­ber 10 to 12 at Mar­riott Re­sort in St Kitts.

Tourism Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz said he was sched­uled to at­tend the event but missed it be­cause of the bud­get de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives last week. Flights in­to and out of St Kitts were sus­pend­ed yes­ter­day as the storm ap­proached the is­land. Guardian colum­nists Tony Fras­er and Grena­di­an jour­nal­ist Odette Camp­bell, who al­so at­tend­ed the con­fer­ence, left be­fore the air­port was closed yes­ter­day.

Perez said the pow­er sup­ply was lost and there were flood wa­ters in var­i­ous parts of the is­land. At 5 pm yes­ter­day LI­AT is­sued its first ad­vi­so­ry in­form­ing pas­sen­gers and the gen­er­al pub­lic that "flights to and from St Kitts have been can­celled for the re­main­der of the day due to the weath­er con­di­tions as­so­ci­at­ed with trop­i­cal storm Rafael."

Perez said flights re­sumed yes­ter­day but the T&T na­tion­als have not been able to se­cure any to re­turn home as yet. She said the T&T na­tion­als were still at the ho­tel and were be­ing well-tak­en care off by tourism of­fi­cials there.