St. Croix and Tropical Storm Irene

[mbianka]

Any reports from sailors in St. Croix? Looks like tropical storm Irene made a direct hit yesterday. From the You Tube videos looked like a lot of rain but, some of the waters arounf the island looked nasty. I have a friend on a boat there and hope they made it to a hurricane hole.

[GordMay]

Tropical storm Irene downed trees and caused widespread power outages in the U.S. Virgin Islands as it churned just miles from St. Croix, said Christine Lett, spokeswoman for the territory's emergency management agency.

In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Gov. John deJongh declared a state of emergency in order to impose storm curfews.

"We've got what appears to be a direct hit on St. Croix," said governor spokesman Jean Greaux, referring to the largest and poorest of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Emergency shelters were opened on St. Croix, where the port was closed. The Hovensa LLC refinery on St. Croix also closed its port because of the storm but operations remained normal at the refinery, one of the largest in the Western Hemisphere, said spokesman Steve Strahan.

More ➥ Hurricane Irene slams Puerto Rico, eyes U.S. - CBS News

[MarkJ]

Got Bransons house on Nekker:

"We had a really bad tropical storm with winds up to 90mph. A big lightning storm came around 4am and hit the house," he added.
"The main house is completely destroyed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...ichard-branson

Burnt to the ground.

[bvimatelot]

[QUOTE=GordMay;756379]

...In the U.S. Virgin Islands, Gov. John deJongh declared a state of emergency in order to impose storm curfews..

Its always interesting to compare BVI to USVI whenever we get smacked. BVI well knows that the Queen aint going to do anything other than perhaps, send one of her few remaining grey warriors (If she's got one in the area - which covers from the Falklands to the Bay of Biscay, apparently), so BVI just gets on with it. USVI on the other hand sits back lamely and says to Uncle Sam - "Send Money - Lots of it!!" 80% of which is extremely unlikely to get to where its supposed to be used...oh, well...

Shame about Richard's house: my daughter flew back from UK to home in BVI a couple of days ago with Kate Winslet - who apparently became a bit of a heroine in helping Richard's 90 year old Mum out of the house....bless her!