Charles Laurence fears the worst from Hurricane Ike

Many readers who followed our New York correspondent Charles Laurence's (pictured) summer series about renovating a beach house on Salt Cay in the Turks and Caicos Islands have contacted The First Post to ask what has happened in the light of Hurricane Ike.

The answer is that Laurence has no idea - and is waiting anxiously by the phone in New York, expecting the worst. "I have just heard from Carolyn Dickinson, the District Commissioner, that everyone who stayed on Salt Cay survived withourt harm," he said on Monday morning. "But she said the damage is massive. So I have to asume that my house will have been destroyed.

"It's horrible. I only finished the house a few weeks ago. If I'm lucky, I will only have lost the roof. Possibly the veranda too. But there's no telephone link at the moment so I just don't know."

Laurence adds: "I know the house survived Hanna [the hurricane that came between Gustav and Ike] because a neighbour called to tell me she had passed it and everything looked fine. But Hanna only skirted the islands. With Ike, the eye of the storm passed directly over the islands."

Reports from the Turks and Caicos - still a British territory - say that 80 per cent of properties have been damaged. The Royal Navy frigate Iron Duke, the ship on which Prince William was serving in July, is heading to the islands to take part in the relief effort. Michael Misick, the Turks and Caicos Premier, said islanders had been "just holding on for life" during the Category Four storm. "They got hit really, really bad," he said.