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Hurricane Maria: Virgin Islands
ABOUT HURRICANE MARIA
On September 20th 2017, 14 days after Hurricane Irma hit the Virgin Islands, Hurricane Maria tore away anything that was left from Irma. Hurricane Maria was a category five hurricane with the highest winds of 175 mph. It hit Puerto Rico and St. Croix the hardest. At least three people were killed in total in Puerto Rico. The reported damage costed over $91 million.
MY EXPERIENCE DURING HURRICANE MARIA
Water was flooding into our staircase every three seconds. My dad was bailing water out into a bucket with a dustpan. There was so much water that it started flowing into the downstairs living room. I couldn’t even sleep in my bed because it got to moist. The water started seeping through my bedroom floor and into the hallway which was the darkest part of our downstairs, so every so often we would slip and/or fall. For dinner we ate ham and cheese sandwiches. All we did to distract ourselves was listen to a solar powered radio and playing mad libs.
MY EXPERIENCE AND THE DAMAGE AFTER HURRICANE IRMA
The morning after the hurricane, my family and I went upstairs to check out any damage done to our house, which was minimal. There was a lot of mold that formed over the next few days. Hurricane Irma ripped off one of our shutters, so to get ready for Hurricane Maria my father put pieces of wood horizontally across the window, which weren’t all to secure. Below the heater in the top corner of my parents room there was a hole which had let a lot of water in. Outside we could barely see the ocean and what we could see was brown.
OVERALL RECOVERY
Even though it's almost been eight months we still don’t have internet and most of the island is still living on tiny little boxes that only give us so much service. Some roads still have huge potholes, and some houses are still ripped apart. Our island has more blue roofs then it ever did because almost have the island has tarps on their roofs. Most of the solar panels in the solar field are damaged. But school has started up again and volleyball season has ended and basketball season is coming to an end. My family and most other families have continued on with normal (well as normal as St. Thomas brings) life.