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Hurricane Irma: Virgin Islands


Irma's effects on the U.S. Virgin Islands were mostly on St Thomas, where at least 12 inches (305 mm) of rain fell, and on St John. St Thomas suffered a lot of damaged buildings, including its police station and airport. Patients from the fourth and third floors in Charlotte Amalie's hospital had to be relocated to lower floors because of flooding from the roof. There were three deaths accounted on the island because of Irma. In St Croix, there were communication problems and some damage to the infrastructure. St John lost access to ferry and cargo services and because of that they also lost access to the local airport. Due to its normal reliance on electricity from St Thomas, the island was left without power. By September 7, the USS Wasp amphibious assault ship had arrived in the U.S. Virgin Islands to give supplies, damage assessment, and helping people leave the island if needed. There were four additional warships that were on their way to Texas to assist with hurricane harvey, but they were redirected to the U.S. Virgin Islands. In St.Thomas 80% of the island was destroyed and 40,000 of the 52,000 left homeless. NASA’s landsat 8 satellite took a picture of St. Thomas before the storm and a picture after the storm. The difference between the two pictures were very big in the picture before the Virgin Islands was green and after the Islands were brown. As you can tell from what I have written and what you have seen on the internet, news there was a lot of devastation from the hurricane.

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