Historical February–March 2018 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Mary and I flew down to St. Thomas on October 29 to celebrate the first birth day of our (hopefully) first grandchild, Van Taylor. Monica, our oldest daughter has lived on The Island for about four years.
This was the first time we’d seen them since the hurricanes.
We were happy to verify first-hand that they had come through all of that turmoil in good shape. Monica runs the after-sales service office for a chain of Caribbean jewelry stores (ironically headquartered in Troy, Michigan).
She started this this job a week before the hurricanes hit! Only six of the thirty-seven stores were still open after the storms.
She originally went there when she worked for the Ritz-Carlton.
She was transferred from the Clayton property to St. Thomas to take a promotion. Vaughn was partly raised on St. Thomas and graduated from high school there.
He owns an automotive service business.
His shop was flattened by the hurricanes but he recovered enough equipment to keep operating his on-site service. Monica is a real survivor.
She went to work at a hotel in Shanghai, only to be caught in a mass layoff eight months later.
She secure a position as the business manager for a commercial florist and was able to stay for another three years.
She then moved to Cairo, where she wrote for a news summary service.
From there, she returned to St. Louis, where she resumed her previous career with the Ritz-Carlton. Along the way, she picked up fluency in Mandarin and Arabic. Hope this helps. Monica was lucky.
She and fiancé Vaughn moved to this apartment from the more-exposed North side of the island before the hurricanes hit. Better yet, their landlord, a former engineer for the Water and Power Authority, had prepared well for natural disasters.
The house survived the storms intact; it also had a full cistern of water, solar power, and a backup generator for overcast days.
As they were unable to leave the apartment for several days after each storm, it was vital to have power for the refrigerator and the food stockpiled inside.
The view from Monica’s apartment on the West end of St. Thomas is fascinating.
As you look in that direction, the Atlantic appears on your right and the Caribbean on your left.
On a clear day, you can barely make out the tip of Puerto Rico, some 40-odd miles away. St. Thomas is essentially the top of a mountain sticking out of the water, so the view down-slope displays a number of homes.
A lot of these homes have Blue Roofs. Blue Roofs are tarpaulins that are temporary replacements for roofs lost to Hurricanes Irma and Marie.
The people on this end of St. Thomas were relatively lucky, as both storms originated southeast of The Island. Farther East on the island, these roofs became more prominent. So do ruins.
Some of these ruins date from the 1995 Hurricane Marilyn.
The ruins stand in testimony to the area’s poverty and Mainland neglect.
A lot of help is here now, however.
The B757 that Delta sends to The Island once a day was mostly full of relief workers, notably a large contingent of Jehovah’s Witnesses (they displayed ID tags, which makes them easier to thank).
We talked to a Red Cross volunteer, who told us that organization is regularly rotating people in and out of the Virgin Islands.
A FEMA employee we met on our return trip was going home for the first time in three months. Not much work is being done to rebuild the houses. Although many of them are insured, there is a shortage of insurance adjusters on the island.
Some have been flown in, but, as one of them told me, they are concentrating on the commercial buildings.
Residents will have to wait.
In the meantime, the inhabitants risk losing their right to a claim if they do anything to make their houses habitable. Blue Roofs will be part of the landscape for quite some time to come.
Some of the stores are back in business. Shipments are coming in by sea, but fresh food is scarce and of poor quality.
There are no working traffic lights.
The Home Depot lost some of its roof and is only partly open.
As of November 1st, 38% of St. Thomas had power and cellular service was available (but not reliable) on about 2/3 of the area.
Most of the hotels need rebuilding.
This will take a couple of years to remedy.
The best way right now to visit the area is by cruise ship.
They resumed visits in November. Many of the beaches, including the famous Magen’s Bay are open. Downtown has power and many of the shops are open.
The roads are finally passable (no sidewalks outside of Charlotte Amalie), and “disaster tours” should be interesting. Water taxi service to St. John and the National Park is running. So much of what people like to do in this area is still available. Someone posted graphic satellite views of St. Thomas, showing the island just before and just after the hurricanes.
The island’s color changed from green to brown. It’s green again now, even though the foliage is not at all high. Monica could not see the Atlantic from her house before Irma because of the dense foliage.
Most of the houses were isolated in their own little patch of jungle; they can see each other now.
This will pass soon.
The Virgin Islands’ need for help will not.
I hope they will not be forgotten, as they have been so many times before.
Original photograph caption
Van Taylor at his first birthday; photograph accompanying his grandfather’s article.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, February–March 2018.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Source prints Hurricanes Irma and Marie and production-like sentence Hope this helps. Both retained as actually printed; no unauthorized deletion or hurricane-name correction. November first 38 percent power describes preceding hurricane recovery period, not current conditions.
Original source: SD_Times2018_02.pdf, printed page(s) 4; PDF page(s) 4.
