St. Croix
Hi all
For stress relief (mine) and educational purposes (all of you), I decided to do an essay on St. Croix and Hurricane Maria. My aim is to shed some light on the status of the island. I have been searching for information since about 8 AM this morning (September 28th) and it has not been easy to find much except for YouTube.
First Thoughts
As I mentioned in a comment in gjohnsit’s essay about Puerto Rico, there was little news or pictures of the damage on St. Croix which I found quite frustrating.
It’s as if the island, which was hit by Hurricane Maria while it was a Category 5 storm, did not exist from the point of view of the national media. It is completely understandable that Puerto Rico got lots of coverage but I just can’t understand the near lack of coverage of St. Croix for so long. The coverage is improving but as usual, if you want to see pics and vids, YouTube is the way to go.
As a US Postal employee, I want to mention the state of mail on the island. St. Croix, along with Culebra and Vieques Post Offices are still closed. Many of Puerto Rico’s main island Post Offices have reopened to some extent.
When you click on the link below, you are taken to the official Service Disruption page where you can click on various links relating to storms and states. Clicking on “Hurricane Maria” will give you the latest update on the status of the mail service.
http://about.usps.com/news/service-alerts/resident-weather-updates.htm
Interesting Facts
Before I list links to video coverage of St. Croix, I thought I would include some interesting facts about the island. I learned some of this during my visits in 2008 and 2009. My sister and I had been estranged from our father for a long time and as is the way of life, his terminal illness was what brought us together again. He subsequently died from cancer in April of 2009.
Here are some things you may or may not know about St. Croix.
- St. Croix has two major rum distilleries – Cruzan Rum and Diageo’s Captain Morgan.
- Before it closed in 2012 one of the world's largest oil refineries (Hovensa which was jointly owned by Hess and Venezuela) used to be here. It is currently used only for storage and a Chinese company based in Hong Kong (Sinopec) is currently in talks with the island to possibly reopen it.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/15/us-virgin-islands-sues-o...
http://viconsortium.com/business/st-croix-not-ready-for-amount-of-jobs-s... - Alexander Hamilton, born in Nevis and raised for eight years in Christiansted, experienced a major hurricane in 1772 and wrote about it. This letter, published in the Royal Danish-American Gazette prompted his employers and others in the community to help with funds to send him to attend college on the mainland of North America. http://www.gotostcroix.com/st-croix-blog/alexander-hamiltons-history-st-...
- Frederiksted Pier is a deep water pier that can accommodate “two eagle class vessels weighing a maximum of 142,000 gross tons each with drafts up to 29 feet and two mini-cruise vessels with drafts of 18 feet.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederiksted_Pier
It was destroyed in 1989 by Hurricane Hugo and majorly damaged by Hurricane Marilyn in 1995. It remains to be seen what damage was done by Hurricane Maria. - One of the 10 VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array) radio antenna telescopes is housed on St. Croix. This dish is the easternmost end of the system. At 17° 45′ 23.47″ N, 64° 35′ 1.54″ W it also is the furthest south in the system.
- Point Udall, located at 17°45′20″N 64°33′55″W, is the easternmost point of the US by travel when you include all territories and states of the US. It is named for Stewart Udall (Secretary of the Interior under JFK and LBJ) and is not to be confused with Point Udall, located at 13°26′51.2″N 144°37′5.5″E, in Guam. Point Udall in Guam is the westernmost point of the US by travel and is named for Stewart’s brother, Morris (a former Arizona congressman).
Effects of Hurricane Maria on St. Croix
An article posted on September 25th at the WUSF news site (WUSF is an NPR station located at the University of South Florida), gives a brief summation of the situation on the island.
St. Croix had been a hub for hurricane relief for the northernmost US VI's (St. Thomas and St. John) which had been hit by Hurricane Irma just two weeks prior. With most of their supplies gone, the situation on the island is not good. There is a six-picture slideshow here showing some of the damage.
http://wusfnews.wusf.usf.edu/post/hurricane-damaged-st-croix-challenged-...
Here are some YouTube videos I found, showing the damage to the island.
Hurricane Maria moved from the Southeast to the Northwest. The eye was closer to Frederiksted in the Northwest of the island than Christiansted so more of the damage was in Frederiksted. My family is throughout the island but most are in Christiansted.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32AgNkOa0WQ] Aerial view
[video:https://www.youtu.be/hTvD5HYh3j4] Driving through some of the aftermath
[video:https://www.youtu.be/aoLenTHIxUw] Downtown Christiansted
[video:https://www.youtu.be/vjjkBmBfNPs] Drone footage of Frederiksted Pier and nearby homes
There are additional suggested YouTube videos below each of the videos above if you watch them on the YouTube site or in the app.
Some Mainstream Reporting
Finally, some mainstream media sites I found that have reported on St. Croix (yes one of them is FOX but they actually did a decent job here). Since my search was done on Google for pics, if one of the other mainstream sites like CNN, MSNBC, etc. have any reporting, I may have missed them if they had no pics.
I also notice that some of the pictures you will see are the same because they are now being shared.
http://www.ibtimes.com/st-croix-devastation-hurricane-maria-shown-new-pi...
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/25/virgin-islands-bracing-for-long-rec...
https://www.reuters.com/news/picture/st-croix-damage-from-above-idUSRTX3...
I hope this has been informative for anyone who is interested.
Thanks for reading.
Comments
All places in the US
affected by natural disasters should receive needed help. All those who cry, "salute the flag" and other crap take note.
Our government is an oligarchy and TPTB won't give up power without a great big push...
off a cliff!
Okay. Too much?
Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos
Thanks for sharing this.
The dearth of coverage is disheartening as you know so many are affected.
That one, longer Youtube of the drive-around just took the life out of you. You know that three-quarters of those buildings -- even the ones still relatively intact at first sight but water-damaged inside and in the walls -- will have to come down. Three-quarters of a historic neighborhood will be missing.
And St. Croix already had a declining economy before this happened.
All that debris to remove, where do you put it? And where and when will you be able to get the money and materials to rebuild?
Disheartening but not surprising
I do a lot of self-censoring about events like this because to state that the lack of coverage is due to x, y, or z tends to be counterproductive even if true.
As to the debris, that is a good point. It's not quite the same as when the original pier was destroyed during Hugo. From the Wikipedia article I linked above:
Who knows how they will handle the debris from Maria?
Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos
They are such paradises when the weather is behaving.
It will only get worse. The misery will be too much to bear.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Yes
From what I remember (and if they read this, they can correct my memory) two of my cousins, who are sisters, told me they decided to move to St. Croix because where they had been living on the mainland experienced hurricanes anyway so why not be with family in this tropical paradise?
That was back in 2008.
Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos
Thanks for the update!
You're welcome
and I will try to post more if I am up to it and feel it might be interesting.
I will have to see how things go.
Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos
Thank you for your essay . . .
Thank you.
I like what your cousins said . . . "might as well live in paradise."
Somewhere, someplace, on some video I watched or something I read . . . the president or governor of one of these islands said, "we are going to rebuild our infrastructure to be more resilient." He gave burying all of the power lines as an example.
Concrete dome homes? Not so pretty, but resilient.
Please keep us posted. Also, if there is a particular gofundme you recommend.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Aw, but I want pretty!
Pretty and resilient! Properly designed dome homes could work. You do still have to deal with the flooding and I have no idea how you can fight that. It's easy to tell people not to live in areas prone to floods when you are on the mainland; not so easy on a small island.
And yes, the power lines do need to be buried as anyone on the mainland can tell you.
Up here in New York, I am right next to Nassau and Suffolk County on Long Island and every time a Nor-Easter or really bad winter storm comes through, they deal with power outages due to downed power lines. Many of their lines are still above ground. A stiff wind and a weakened old tree are all it takes oftentimes.
It's something that tends to happen in rural and suburban areas. Until the area becomes more populated, the power companies seem to be resistant to spending the money it would take to bury the lines.
Even Queens still has some lines that are above ground (mostly phone lines).
Yaldabaoth, Saklas I'm calling you. Samael. You're not alone. I said, you're not alone, in your darkness. You're not alone, baby. You're not alone. "Original Sinsuality" Tori Amos