‘Everything’s been destroyed’: The islands Iota left in ruins before Nicaragua

On Monday, a handful of satellite phone calls managed to break through a barrier of silence isolating the island of Providencia off the coast of Nicaragua, offering a glimpse of the devastation that Hurricane Iota had wrought upon the islands that had stood in its path. Before Hurricane Iota struck Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane, packing winds of 155 mph — just 2 mph shy of Category 5 force, it first devastated the Archipelago of San…