Residents turn to the task of rebuilding in the Caribbean

ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands — The last of the late-summer tourists were gone Wednesday from the U.S. Virgin Islands, ferried away from the wreckage of Hurricane Irma in cruise ships bound for Puerto Rico and Miami. Most part-time residents — and anyone else who didn’t have to stay — had cleared out as well.

Those left behind on St. Thomas and St. John were surviving on whatever they could find as they tried to repair or secure their houses with whatever materials were available.

They had to dodge downed power lines that snaked through hills that were a deep green before the storm but are now brown and desolate.

Many people were surviving on military rations handed out by U.S. Marines and the National Guard or at a local church that is serving 500 people a day.

“What I see are people coming who are hungry, who are tired, who are thirsty and need help,” said the Rev. Jeff Neevel, pastor of the St. Thomas Reformed Church in the Virgin Islands capital of Charlotte Amalie. “It’s a destruction zone. Everything is destroyed. Everything.”

His church got power Tuesday for the first time since the storm hit a week earlier, thanks to its being designated an official food distribution center. Neevel said one of the most critical needs he sees is for tarps to protect the many homes that have lost roofs. People are also desperate for power and water so they can return to some sense of normality.

Gov. Kenneth Mapp warned that it could take several weeks to restore full power and water to the territory as he angrily denounced people with “unrealistic expectations,” an apparent reaction to complaints on social media and the radio.

“If you are not prepared to go through these challenges in a realistic way, with realistic expectations, I am strongly urging you to take one of the flights or one of the mercy cruises and go to the mainland for a few months and come back,” Mapp told reporters.

Hurricane Irma lashed St. Thomas and St. John with winds of 150 mph when the storm hit Sept. 6.