TUTU, V.I. — With residents ignoring the loosely enforced curfew here and lining up hours before the makeshift pantries opened, it was clear Monday that many were still going to end the day hungry.

All some of them could do was walk around neighborhoods smelling for cooking and plead for the kindness of strangers.

“It’s survival mode right now,” said Kaleem Stephens, a 30-year-old construction worker in St. Thomas. He was left without a home and had on the same clothes — a white T-shirt, gray basketball shorts and black basketball shoes — he was wearing when Hurricane Irma hit his island last Wednesday.

To most Americans nervously watching the path of Hurricane Irma, the United States Virgin Islands were little more than marks on a map as the storm churned its way to the mainland. But on Monday, as Irma dropped below hurricane strength and most Floridians counted themselves lucky, it became clear that the country had a humanitarian crisis on its hands in one of its tropical paradises.