'Rough! Rough! Rough!': Dominica prime minister posts dramatic Facebook updates as Hurricane Maria destroys his home

The Caribbean island of Dominica has been left devastated by Hurricane Maria, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said, after he was rescued from his damaged home. 

Packing winds of 160mph, the Category 5 storm pummelled the island on Monday night as it began its sweep across a region already reeling from Hurricane Irma.

In a dramatic series of posts on Facebook, Mr Skerrit detailed the impact of Maria as it made landfall on the island. 

 "The winds are merciless! We shall survive by the grace of God," Mr Skerrit wrote.

A few minutes later, he messaged he could hear the sound of galvanised 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.

In an interview with teleSUR, he said the island had been "devastated". 

"We do not know how many are dead if any. We shall know in the morning. The hurricane is still on. We were brutalised by the hurricane," he added.

It was still too early to know the number of casualties.

Police Inspector Pellam Jno Baptiste told the Associated Press it was still too dangerous for officers to do a full assessment. “Where we are, we can’t move,” he said.

A caller on the national DBS Radio Dominica said the "hospital roof is gone and the generator has failed so it is in total darkness... this is bad."

The island's airport and ports had been closed, and the local water company shut down its systems to protect its intake valves from debris churned up by the storm.

School teacher Dominica Leandra Lander, a former Miss Dominica, said she had collected water, charged her electronic devices and ensured her important documents were safe.

"Just ready to ride out storm at best. With a little prayer on the side," she said.

Meanwhile in Pointe-a-Pitre, Elodie Corte, the boss of a metalworking company, said there had been frantic preparations to limit the damage from the storm.

"We spent the morning strapping down the aluminium to stop it from flying away if the winds are strong," she said.

But she worried that the torrential rains forecast could flood her home.

"We'll seal everything as tightly as we can and then we'll certainly go and stay with friends for the night," she said.