Irma turns Caribbean island paradises into nightmares
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua (AP) — Strung like beads along the
northeast edge of the Caribbean, the Leeward Islands are tiny, remote and beautiful,
with azure waters and ocean breezes drawing tourists from around the world.
The isolation that made St. Barts, St. Martin, Anguilla
and the Virgin Islands vacation paradises has turned them into cut off, chaotic
nightmares in the wake of Hurricane Irma. Looting and lawlessness were reported
Saturday by both French and Dutch authorities, who were sending in extra troops
to restore order.
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The Category 5 storm snapped the islands’ fragile links to
the outside world with a direct hit early Wednesday, pounding their small
airports, decapitating cellphone towers, filling harbors with overturned,
crushed boats and leaving thousands of tourists and locals desperate to escape.
The situation worsened Saturday with the passage of Category
4 Hurricane Jose, which shuttered airports and halted emergency boat traffic
through the weekend.
Looting, gunshots and a lack of clean drinking water were
reported on the French Caribbean territory of St. Martin, home to five-star
resorts and an estate owned by President Donald Trump.
Federal officials deployed C-130s to evacuate U.S. citizens
from the French Caribbean island of St. Martin to Puerto Rico. Nearly 160 were
evacuated on Friday and approximately 700 more on Saturday.
The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp evacuated hospital
patients from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands to St. Croix and Puerto Rico. Norwegian
Cruise Line turned a cruise ship into an ad-hoc rescue boat, sending a ship
with 10 restaurants, a spa and a casino to evacuate 2,000 tourists from St.
Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Norwegian Sky was due to arrive Tuesday
and take its charges to Miami.
More than 1,100 police, military officials and others were
deployed to St. Martin and the nearby French Caribbean territory of St. Barts,
where they used helicopters to identify the cars of people looting stores and
homes. French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced Saturday night that
France would be sending more Foreign Legion troops, paratroopers and other
reinforcements to St. Martin starting Sunday.
Philippe said the several hundred gendarmes, soldiers and
other security forces there were working in “difficult conditions”
and needed help.
The government told all residents to stay inside and put the
island and St. Barts on its highest alert level as Hurricane Jose rolled
through the area.
The island is divided between French St. Martin and Dutch
St. Maarten, where the Dutch government estimated Saturday that 70% of houses
were badly damaged or destroyed, leaving much of the 40,000 population in
public shelters as they braced for the arrival of Jose.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the situation remained “grim”
on the island where widespread looting had broken out and a state of emergency
was in force.
Rutte said some 230 Dutch troops and police were patrolling
St. Maarten to maintain order and deliver aid and a further 200 would arrive in
coming days. The government evacuated 65 dialysis patients from St. Maarten’s
hospital, which also was hard hit by Irma.
The islands’ woes increased as the airport on St. Barts was
closed, and those in Anguilla and St. Martin were open only to the military,
rescue crews and aid organizations. Others, including St. Thomas in the U.S.
Virgin Islands, banned flyovers.
Late Saturday, St. Maarten Prime Minister William Marlin
said about 1,600 tourists had been evacuated and efforts are being made to move
1,200 more.
Marlin said many countries and people have offered help to
St. Maarten, but authorities are waiting on the weather conditions to see how
this can be coordinated.
Before the hurricanes, St. Maarten’s Princess Juliana
International Airport was one of the former Dutch colony’s major tourist draws
thanks to a runway that ended just a few yards from the sandy crescent of Maho
Beach, where people could stand and watch as arriving jets skimmed low over
their heads.
After Irma, aerial footage shot by Dutch marines showed that
Maho Beach’s sands had washed away and the airport was badly damaged. The Dutch
military are using the runway, which was inundated by high tides during the
hurricane, to ferry in aid supplies but say it’s not yet open to civilian
flights as there are no runway lights or air traffic control. The Canadian
low-cost airline and tour agency Sunwing evacuated some Canadian tourists from
St Maarten to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic on Saturday.
Ports in St. John, St. Thomas and elsewhere remained closed.
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As Jose neared, the last airplane flew in to St. Martin’s
battered Grande Case airport Friday carrying workers to help re-establish the
island’s water supply and electricity. French authorities said some 1,105
recovery workers were deployed on St. Martin and St. Barts. A tanker with 350
tons of fresh water was also on its way.
By Saturday, damage was estimated to have already reached
$1.44 billion.
France said it hoped to allow commercial boats to go to and
from St. Martin and nearby Guadeloupe on Monday, when waters are expected to
calm.
French President Emmanuel Macron came under criticism for
his government’s handling of the crisis.
Once known for pink sandy beaches that attracted celebrities
and royalty, the island of Barbuda is now a disaster zone. Virtually all of its
1,500 residents left for the sister island of Antigua, a 1.5-hour boat ride
away, ahead of Hurricane Jose’s arrival.
“The biggest problem in Barbuda now is the fact that
you have so many dead animals in the water and so on, that there is a threat of
disease. You could put all the people back in Barbuda today … but then you’ll
have a medical crisis on your hand,” Foreign Affairs Minister Charles
Fernandez said.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson announced a package of about
$55 million for the relief effort in the British overseas territories of
Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Turks Caicos.
“The UK government is doing everything it possibly can
to help those affected by the hurricane,” he said.
But Anguilla’s former attorney general, Rupert Jones,
criticized Britain’s response to the disaster.
“It is an insufficient drop in the Caribbean ocean for
islands subject to devastation and inhabited by its own citizens,” he
wrote in an email. “The rebuilding effort is bound to cost a vast amount
more and it is hard to see this making a real difference to the three islands.”
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Weissenstein reported from Havana, Cuba. Danica Coto in San
Juan, Puerto Rico, Thomas Adamson and Angela Charlton in Paris and Mike Corder
in The Hague contributed.
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