In September of 2017, hurricanes Irma and Maria wrecked havoc across the Eastern Caribbean region. While obliterating most of the infrastructure in the Caribbean nations found along their path, leaving a trail of suffering and despair in their wake, both hurricanes gradually destroyed the existing seismic networks. We assess the impact of both hurricanes on the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center's monitoring capabilities for the Caribbean region relying on the computation of theoretical detection and response times while accounting for the additional station outages caused by both hurricanes. The results show that in the Caribbean region hurricanes Irma and Maria rendered inoperative an additional 14% and 38% of the available 146 stations, respectively.  Within the Eastern Caribbean region monitored by the PTWC, hurricanes Irma and Maria exacerbated station outages to an astonishing 47% and 81% of the available 76 stations, respectively. Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Lesser Antilles suffered the brunt of both hurricanes, and their seismic networks essentially disappeared in a matter of weeks. The double punch delivered by two successive category 5 hurricanes added up to 02:45 extra minutes to the detection and response times in areas previously covered by a much denser seismic network. This degradation of PTWC's local monitoring capabilities prompted emergency adjustments, including the temporary reduction of the number of stations required for both earthquake detection, and ML magnitude release. These adjustments enabled a faster detection and response to 4.0 or larger magnitude earthquakes in the region than otherwise possible in the aftermath of the pervasive seismic network outages caused by hurricanes Irma and Maria.