US Virgin Islands getting aid, but still reeling from Irma
ST. THOMAS, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP) — The last of the late-summer tourists were gone Wednesday from the U.S. Virgin Islands, ferried away from the wreckage of Hurricane Irma in cruise ships bound for Puerto Rico and Miami. Most part-time residents — and anyone else who didn't have to stay — had cleared out as well, back to homes on the mainland with water, power and internet, and where food isn't scarce.
Those left behind on St. Thomas and St. John were surviving on whatever they could find as they tried to repair or secure their houses with whatever materials were available. They had to dodge downed power lines that snaked through hills that were a deep green before the storm but now so stripped of leaves and trees that they are brown and desolate.
Many people were surviving on military rations handed out by U.S. Marines and the National Guard or at a local church that is serving 500 people a day.
"What I see are people coming who are hungry, who are tired, who are thirsty and need help," said the Rev. Jeff Neevel, pastor of the St. Thomas Reformed Church in the Virgin Islands capital of Charlotte Amalie. "It's a destruction zone. Everything is destroyed. Everything."
Read more: http://magicvalley.com/news/world/us-virgin-islands-getting-aid-but-still-reeling-from-irma/article_79cae53f-5585-51cd-9525-39dc75d4d4c1.html