Good Day from St. Croix!
Initially we were bracing and preparing our boats and property for a Tropical Storm on Tuesday to arrive on Wednesday night. Well at 5pm Tuesday the forecast changed and we immediately changed our preparation from a Tropical Storm to a Cat 2 Hurricane. This entailed working endlessly through the evening and early Wednesday with the change the weather was to bring us.
The first band of the storm hit us around noon on Wednesday and was raining throughout the day. We were hit around 9pm and it lasted until 2:30 or 3 Thursday morning. We lost power, phones and most of us only had a local radio station that was broadcasting live throughout the night. This was the only communication we had about the storm and what was happening. It was rather comforting to just have the radio on hear all the people calling in and asking what was happening in certain parts of the island. Many people still had land phone lines and it was helpful to them to get some questions answered. Thank you to the radio station(s) for broadcasting throughout the night for all of us here on St. Croix.
We didn't sleep much through the night worrying about our sailboat in Green Cay Marina. We did all we could do and all we had left to do was to pray! We secured ourselves in a concrete condo and weathered the storm just fine. We had prepared all the necessities before the storm hit including: battery operated radio (with extra batteries), plenty of water, canned foods, flashlights, candles, matches, and some cards to pass the time.
We left the condo the next morning before the curfew was lifted as my husband had a pass to go to work to check his plant. We then went to check our boat and I had a sick feeling in my stomach. We toped the hill at Green Cay Marina and saw our two masts on our boat and it was upright. We drove closer and started walking hand in hand down the dock (which was still there) and we noticed several fishing rigs busted up on a yacht, another boat had a broken windshield, a broken cleat that had been holding a line tied to it....We then got to our 50' sailing vessel and she was just fine. I had tears of joy and hugged my husband. This isn't just a yacht to us.. it is our home. We unlocked the cabin doors and went below and everything was fine. The only loss we had was a broken snubber on a stern line and a chaffed dinghy line. Wow, did we get lucky. We had the boat tied down like a spider web over the vessel.
Then we walked around the docks to check our friends boats and everyone faired well. The main thing was a few friends of ours weathered the storm in the restrooms on the marina sight. They didn't want to leave their boats, but the hurricane became too fierce for them to feel safe. They weathered the storm with ceiling tiles falling on them and the winds breaking branches off trees just outside. The wind blew so hard that when you look up the hills you see brown hillsides from the lack of leaves on the trees. It is an eerie feeling looking around at the broken trees, fallen power lines and poles. Then we went into Christiansted and went to the boardwalk to see the boats on the moorings. It was devastating. Many boats came loose of their moorings and crashed into other boats and ended up either sinking or hitting the dock. There are probably 30 boats that are destroyed from the Harbor down to the Yacht club on the East End. The island was not spared damage as some of the media is representing. We were hit and the storm intensified to a Cat 3 which moved it much quicker through the area. We got lucky that the eye hit just East of St. Croix. However, the Hurricane hit us hard and lasted until 2:30 or so.
We are cleaning debris, salvaging boats, and still in a numb mindset of what really happened! Many of these boats that were destroyed were people's homes. Keep in mind we were almost through hurricane season as this is the middle of October. Just a reminder it's not over till it's over...
We are very fortunate as far as I know no human death caused by the hurricane. We are thankful that our electricity and phone lines are getting restored as quickly as possible. Our island is still beautiful.....it is wonderful to see everyone working together to make the clean up go as quickly as possible.
Just a little more clean up and our island turns back into its beautiful Paradise....We are still enjoying 80-85 degrees every day...and that is what Fall is for us here! Our winter will get a little chillier, down to around 70 degrees at night and only up to around 80 during the day. I will trade one night in a hurricane to live in this beautiful weather year round. Just think tomorrow is another beautiful walk on the beach, another day relaxing in the hammock reading a good book under the palm trees (dodging coconuts)! Life is good, but Island life IS better! Just remember that Insurance does really take some of the worry away...during the storm.. knowing our yacht was insured was a great piece of mind. Several of the vessels destroyed were not insured (which is heartbreaking) for our friends who lost their weekend pleasure boats.
Kelli Barton
Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands
Comments (2)Subscribe to CommentsComment