Battered by Hurricane Irma, thousands flee St. John island in path of the next storm

Rick Jervis | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Residents evacuating St. John ahead of Hurricane Maria After being hit by Hurricane Irma, U.S. Virgin Island residents in St. John are now trying to leave the island before Hurricane Maria strikes the area.

CRUZ BAY, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands — Memories of Hurricane Irma's destructive rage still fresh in their minds, people on this battered island waited in long lines at the dock here Sunday, hoping for a chance to flee the island before a new storm arrives.

Hurricane Maria, forecast to roar through here as a Category 3 hurricane Wednesday before heading to Puerto Rico, was on its way.

“I’m still in shock that I’m leaving,” said Teri Hogg, 43, as she boarded a catamaran to Puerto Rico. “This is my home, and I love it here.”

But Irma “was the scariest thing in my life,” she said. “There’s not enough water or fuel or food here. We have to leave.”

Roughly half of St. John’s 4,500 residents have already fled since Irma pummeled the smallest and most remote of the three U.S. Virgin Islands on Sept. 7.

Irma hit here as as a powerful Category 5 storm, with sustained winds up to 185 mph. Homes were mauled, and the island’s main clinic lost chunks of its roof and is barely habitable. The island will be without power for months, and supplies of water and fuel have been slow to arrive.

And now, Maria.

In St. John, residents were dismayed to see some of the federal disaster relief that had finally reached them — two U.S. Navy ships, U.S. Forest rangers, FEMA teams and volunteer doctors — had to be redeployed off the remote island because of Hurricane Maria’s looming threat.

“All that aid that rushed in last week rushed out yesterday and today,” said Jeff Quinlan, a former St. John’s resident who returned last week to help coordinate relief efforts.

For the past 10 days, residents wanting to leave had been ferried off the island mostly by private charter boats. Now time is running out for them, too.

East Island Excursions, which usually takes visitors on snorkeling trips from Fajardo, Puerto Rico, has launched more than 40 trips to St. John on its twin 80-foot catamarans the past week, evacuating thousands of residents, said Jayanne McLaughlin, the group’s founder and president. The company hasn't charged any of the evacuees and has spent nearly $80,000 out of pocket on the trips.

On Monday morning, one of the boats will ferry 70 evacuees on its final run from St. John, then tie up at its Fajardo dock and await Maria. McLaughlin said her phone rings constantly with requests from St. John for more boats as more people try to leave, including women, babies and sick people.

“Where is the Navy?” McLaughlin said. “They’re telling them to evacuate St. John, but there are thousands of people still on the island. Where are the boats?”

Making sure the U.S. Virgin Islands get enough attention after Irma has been a challenge, especially as Florida and Texas were hit with their own hurricane disasters around the same time, said U.S. Rep. Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands' delegate to Congress.

The islands lost its only hospital in St. Thomas, government offices were smashed, and the airport terminal in St. Thomas looked like “grenades were thrown inside and bombs had gone off,” she said. A ferry in St. John was twisted like a straw and thrown atop a nearby building.

“People have to remember that what hit the Virgin Islands was a Category 5 and a direct hit,” Plaskett said. “We already were an isolated area. We don’t get the same support that the rest of the country does.”

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In St. John — the most remote and hardest hit of the three U.S. Virgin Islands — electrical poles snapped in half were by the side of the road. Power lines dangled lifeless across streets, and cars were flipped upside down.

The Myrah Keating Smith Community Health Center, which acts as the island’s lone hospital, lost windows and chunks of its ceiling during Irma, and staffers fear it won’t withstand another blow from Hurricane Maria.

“It’s uninhabitable,” said Nicole Sawyer, a nurse at the clinic. “We need a new roof. I don’t think it’s safe for any of us to be here for the next storm.”

The staff received more bad news Saturday when a team of volunteer nurses and doctors helping with shifts were evacuated off the island, she said.

At the Cruz Bay dock, hundreds of residents milled in front of the Customs building or waited patiently in lines for their chance to board a boat. Some residents handed off pet carriers to friends to take with them. Others hugged evacuating spouses in tearful embraces.

Kristen Turner-Templeton, 32, was leaving behind her husband, Joshua Templeton, who was staying to oversee the condo complex he manages. During Irma, the couple fled from one condo unit to the next — five in all — at the height of the storm, as the winds tore off roofs and punched in doors, she said.

The couple decided not to have her go through that again. She was headed to Alabama to stay with family for a while.

“I don’t want to leave. This is my home,” Turner-Templeton said, blinking back tears, as the catamaran pulled away from Cruz Bay. “I just hope to come back soon.”

To donate to St. John disaster relief:

https://www.facebook.com/eastislandpr?fref=search

https://virginislandsrelief.org/

Follow Rick Jervis on Twitter: @MrRJervis.