On August 17, 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana. It was a category 4 hurricane with momentary winds of up to 130 mph but most the damage wasn’t from the wind as it was from the rain. They had accumulated 40 -60 inches of rain over 4 days flooding streets in homes. There were over 100 deaths and costs of $125 billion. The images show the devastation of that hurricane.
Two weeks later, the National Weather Service warned of a new tropical hurricane building and it already reached a category two by August 31. This particular hurricane looked like it was heading for the Leeward Islands and the Virgin Islands. At this time both my daughters, Michelle and Cortney, were living on St John and they started to make a plan for the upcoming hurricane. First off, they knew that the structures that they were living in weren’t very secure so they would have to find a place to ride out the storm. Locals who had lived there for many, many years had survived previous hurricanes the worst being 1989 hurricane Hugo (category 4) affecting St Croix of the USVI and South Carolina in the states and then 1995 hurricane Marilyn (Category 3)
My daughters took advice from those who had survived the hurricanes and found a safe place in a block and cement apartment below a home of a friend near the only medical clinic on island. Though I would’ve preferred that they evacuated and came to the states to ride out the storm, they chose to stay so I was glad they were staying with friends and near the clinic.
Michelle and Cortney and friends started boarding up the windows of the place they were staying, started stockpiling canned and paper goods and water , batteries, flashlights , gasoline for the cars and for the generator because they knew the electricity would go out. Electricity on the USVI goes out on a regular basis ,let alone during a hurricane, so they were trying to prepare for the worst. They also got out a lot of cash from the ATM. They also helped evacuate friends’ boats to a place called Hurricane Hole named because it was supposed to be a safe place for boats to be protected from tropical storms and hurricanes. Normally, you are not allowed to anchor there because it is part of the National Park and one of the few places where there are mangroves. Mangroves are protected because they are cycling/providing storage of carbon in the tropical coastal ecosystem. But during upcoming storms they are allowed to anchor there since it is a well protected area with mountains on either side of it.
On September 5, hurricane Irma had increased to a category 4 hurricane. sustaining winds of 130 mph. Now the people of St. John knew they were in for a catastrophic hurricane if it continued on its path. I pleaded with my daughters to try to get a plane to the states but they were determined to stay so that they could account for their belongings and make any repairs to their own apartments afterwards.
Cortney had cleared out everything out of her rental space because it was an obvious precarious wooden structure to begin with.
Michelle had put most of her personal belongings, paperwork and sandal stock in containers and stored them in a back bedroom thinking it would be the safest spot for them.
Now it is September 6, and it’s pretty interesting how some people were responding to this threat of the hurricane. On Facebook, I would see some of the people I knew having friends over to ride out the hurricane and have a ‘hurricane party’. Obviously, not taking it very seriously. My daughters were not those people. They heard Barbuda had just been decimated that morning by Irma. They were very definitely stressed and concerned since I was updating them of what was to come and to make sure that they were very prepared as much as possible. As the hurricane started to approach St John, the utility service for the islands (WAPA) cut the power for safety sake. Now they were hunkered down with five other people, thankfully two of which were very capable strong men, and our last conversation that day was that they felt well prepared and had secured their shelter and needed to conserve their cell phone battery so we said goodbye😢
Here home in Indiana, I felt helpless as my daughter, Molly, and son, Nathan and his (then) girlfriend, Jessie, were glued to the television watching the Weather Channel and news stations report how this was the strongest hurricane ever to hit the USVI.
My son said, with tears in his eyes, “I’m never going to see my sisters ever again…”
Traveling Rose in St. John 