OF SUFFERING AND GEOGRAPHY
The people struggling in the Virgin Islands are Americans; they could use some help
Iwould not be writing this if I were in the Virgin Islands. I would be hauling water up out of the cistern under the house, then boiling it on the gas stove. When the propane canister ran dry, so would I. No more safe water to drink. No way to get to any place that might be open and might have food and water for sale. No cash left to buy anything.
I am not there, though, because my scheduled flight home to St. Thomas two days before Hurricane Irma was cancelled, and I have not been able to get a new flight. The airport was closed until a few days ago, and even now, landings and takeoffs are severely limited.
What I know is based on current reports and on my personal experience in 1995 when Hurricane Marilyn blew my roof off, toppled my walls and sent my kitchen appliances and furniture tumbling down the road. When I crawled out from under a pile of beams and boards that had collapsed over me, the house was nothing but splinters. And that was just the beginning. It was four days before outside help arrived, and nearly four months before electricity returned.
Photos and videos circulating worldwide right now show flattened houses, broken boats and dazed people in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Those images are similar to scenes of devastation after tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes elsewhere. You think that you’ve seen all this before and that you can imagine what it must be like. No, you can’t.
The U.S. Virgin Islands are not like Houston or anywhere else on the U.S. mainland. Geography is the story.
The three islands comprising the U.s.-owned territory are tiny specks in a huge ocean, 1,000 miles from a major U.S. city. You can’t get in your car and drive to them. Good Samaritans can’t bring trucks loaded with supplies. By their nature, islands are isolated — apart and away from a large land mass. Thus airplanes and boats are the only way in and the only way out. Both require fuel, facilities and money. Right now, not much of that is available.
People are constantly asking me: Why didn’t the people evacuate? My answer is always: How?
By the time the National Hurricane Center has settled on a hurricane’s probable path, the airport is closed; boats are tied up and cruise ships are elsewhere. Evacuation is not possible and shelters, such as they are, are filling up. Not even the shelters are a guarantee of safety, and certainly not of comfort, because they are as vulnerable as any other building. Supplies and privacy are in short supply, but tension and fear are plentiful. People who flee to a shelter count the hours until they can flee from the shelter.
From brief emails and even briefer cellphone calls from family, friends and co-workers there, I’ve found out they have no electricity, no internet, no phones and have to walk considerable distances to reach a Wi-fi hot spot or a place with a cell signal. Walking is the norm because there’s little gasoline. In many cases, the vehicle you would put the gas in is crushed under debris or upside-down somewhere.
The Virgin Islands Daily News, where I have worked for 23 years, has done its utmost to do what the news media does best: gather accurate, essential information and get it out to people who need it. A number of the
staff huddled in the newsroom through both Irma and Maria. By using a generator, they managed to get print copies on the streets as soon as possible after the storms — and they’ve kept on publishing. A few days ago, the office regained semi-reliable internet, so the electronic paper is operating.
Amid the heroics, The Daily News family suffered losses — a number of editors, reporters, along with advertising, circulation and press-room staff, lost their homes and all their belongings. The greatest was a loss of life. During the worst of Hurricane Maria, the second Category 5 hurricane to hit in only two weeks, a circulation manager drowned outside his house. Police believe he fell while trying to clear tree limbs out of a drainage ditch that was flooding the neighborhood.
He was a Navy veteran, and he was the first person ever to tell me that the U.S. Virgin Islands sent more people, per capita, into U.S. military service than any other place and that the combat deaths and casualties were just as high proportionally. I have not verified those statements, but I can vouch for this: Virgin Islanders are proud to be U.S. citizens.
Glad to be rid of Danish rule when the United States purchased the territory from Denmark on March 31, 1917, the people of the Virgin Islands embraced America and all the good that it stands for.
This centennial year has freshened Virgin Islanders’ bitterness over slavery and invigorated pride that the enslaved people liberated themselves, by themselves and for themselves in 1848. Virgin Islanders know freedom when they see it, and they know it was not America that enslaved them.
As recently as three weeks ago, pictures of the Virgin Islands tended to show carefree people sipping rum cokes under a palm tree on the beach or frolicking in the turquoise sea. Those pictures were real, but those people were tourists, and they are gone, along with the islands’ economy.
Pictures now show vast ruin and deep desperation. Those pictures are real, too, and the Virgin Islanders in those pictures are military veterans and their families, teachers, taxi drivers, clerks, doctors, lawyers, pastors, farmers, maids and managers.
They are people everyone can recognize because they are not “they.” They are “us.” They are Americans. And they could use some help.
Whatever comes from the visits last week by President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, the needs today, right now, are great. FEMA and the Red Cross have arrived, and in time everyone who needs attention will get it. In the interim, you can count on two charities.
The Salvation Army is feeding and taking care of an astounding number of people young and old. Phone service is so unreliable, a donation through the national headquarters would do more good than you can imagine. For ways to help, go to www.salvationarmyusa.org.
The Catholic Charities of the Virgin Islands is feeding hundreds and reaching out everywhere. In addition, Bishop Herbert Bevard is opening the Catholic schools in the Virgin Islands to all public school students, tuition free, because the public schools’ future is uncertain. For ways to help, go to the website www.catholicvi.com.