“I try my best to not get stressed about it,” Ms. Penn said. “I need to keep strong for my children.”

Even as Puerto Rico’s sluggish recovery from Hurricane Maria made headlines, the smaller territories and island-states in the region remained largely an afterthought. Now, with another hurricane season having started, islands like Tortola are still struggling to recover from the two Category 5 hurricanes last year, which razed large swaths of housing and crippled tourism, the economic lifeblood of the Caribbean.

Tourism accounts for about 35 percent of the economy and one in three jobs here.

The British Virgin Islands suffered more than $3.6 billion in damages, or almost four times its gross domestic product. This made it one of the worst hit and one of the slowest to restore normalcy among the British territories affected, which include Anguilla and Turks and Caicos, according to the British government.

Many here also see Irma and Maria as signs of what’s to come, and the rebuilding effort as an existential race against the clock — they know these vulnerable and isolated islands are at the forefront of climate change.