Irma Turns Caribbean Island Paradises Into Nightmares

trung like beads along the northeast edge of the Caribbean, the Leeward Islands are tiny, remote and beautiful, with azure waters and ocean breezes drawing tourists from around the world.

The wild isolation that made St Barts, St. Martin, Anguilla and the Virgin Islands vacation paradises has turned them into cutoff, chaotic nightmares in the wake of Hurricane Irma, which left 22 people dead, mostly in the Leeward Islands. Looting and lawlessness were reported Saturday by both French and Dutch authorities, who were sending in extra troops to restore order. The Category 5 storm snapped the islands’ fragile links to the outside world with a direct hit early Wednesday, pounding their small airports, decapitating cellphone towers, filling harbors with overturned, crushed boats and leaving thousands of tourists and locals desperate to escape. The situation worsened Saturday with the passage of Category 4 Hurricane Jose, which shuttered airports and halted emergency boat traffic through the weekend. Looting, gunshots and a lack of clean drinking water were reported on the French Caribbean territory of St. Martin, home to five-star resorts and a multimillion estate owned by President Donald Trump.

Federal officials deployed C-130s to evacuate U.S. citizens from the French Caribbean island of St Martin to Puerto Rico. Nearly 160 were evacuated on Friday and approximately 700 more on Saturday.

The amphibious assault USS Wasp evacuated hospital patients from St Thomas in the Virgin Islands to St Croix and Puerto Rico.

The Norwegian Cruise Line turned a cruise ship into an ad-hoc rescue boat, sending a ship with 10 restaurants, a spa and a casino to evacuate 2,000 tourists from St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. The Norwegian Sky cruise ship was due to arrive Tuesday and take its charges to Miami.

More than 1100 police, military officials and others were deployed to St. Martin and the nearby French Caribbean territory of St Barts, where they used helicopters to identify the cars of people looting stores and homes.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced Saturday night that France would be sending more Foreign Legion troops, paratroopers and other reinforcements to St Martin starting Saturday. Philippe said the several hundred gendarmes, soldiers and other security forces there were working in “difficult conditions” and needed help.