USVI-On-Line

Praying for all of you on the island.

Colleen thinking of yall; hang in there! Enjoy your provisions! See yall soon.

Enough Already... Rain, Rain, GO AWAY!

In comparison to the personal and property damage, we were just discussing: When will anyone be able to get back to Drunk Bay? It was washed out in late July, I imagine Earl did a number on it and now this?

Not a good few months for St John. Here's to hoping to better weather and a speedy recovery

I keep thinking about this poor couple I saw deplaning in STT when we left on Sunday. They had just been married and she comes off the plane with a little veil on, ready for a honeymoon in the sun. Poor thing, but I guess the rain gives you time for other things...

Maybe you can now kayak to Drunk Bay from Salt Pond Bay.

If the roads are repaired well enough I'll report back on that in a few weeks.

augie wrote:Maybe you can now kayak to Drunk Bay from Salt Pond Bay.

If the roads are repaired well enough I'll report back on that in a few weeks.

I'd be rather reluctant to even touch that water in the pond...but that would be cool. Get on that, will ya?

Wow! Hang in there STJ peeps!!

We're still hanging in there! The roads were clear today with a break in the rain. Brought our car in for a new tire and lunch at the beach bar. Stocked up for an evening of movies & crashing waves right outside our door. Unreal! Last full day tomorrow!

Coleen, hope you've been having fun considering. We've consumed massive amounts of alcohol. The road in front of Mongoose basically broke apart two days ago, and Hawksnest has a whole huge section of the beach washed out from all the rains coming down from the mountains. An Maho had gushing water all over the road this morning. We thought the car would wash away.

I've never seen anything like this. I feel bad, because the couple we're here with hasn't really gotten a chance to see the beauty of St. John with this rain. But they already want to come back

Report From The Rock...

"Thanks for checking in. The island is pretty bad probably worse than what you have seen on tv. Coral Bay especially. All the new roads on the north side lifted. There are roads washed out and people have been stranded. I heard so far it was 15 inches of rain and there is more coming. Mystic Ridge did fine. I have a painter out there who has been working on the doors, bathrooms, inside furniture and he said no water came in the house so that is really good. I did have a couple of houses with flooded areas but they have all been cleaned up. Mine was probably the worst of the group, the wall above my driveway collapsed which channeled all the water to the front of the house. I had water seeping in under the baseboards and the front door. It was bad. All cleaned up now but I am in the process of getting sand bags to try and divert the water away from the front door since more rain is on the way. The bobcat won't be here till Monday to cleanup so I hope the sandbags are enough till then.

By the time you get here we should be all tried out and somewhat back to normal."

There are some exaggerations in that.
All of the main roads are quite passable today, and although there are a few areas on north shore where the new pavement has some crumbling, the road is still better overall than it was last year. They have not finished the repaving, so most of these areas should get fixed pretty quickly once it dries out.
Coral Bay, logically, has the biggest problems given all the steep slope development since the last time we had this kind of rain. Again, what I mean by "this kind of rain" is not just the quantity, but the velocity: 5 inches in a day is a lot better than 5 inches in 2 hours of that day.
It has happened before, it will happen again. So far, we're not on track to break any records for yearly rainfall. The stretch of Centerline from Bordeaux down to Coral Bay mostly fell down the hill in the late 1960's-early 70's and took years to rebuild, but there were NO subdivision roads in the watershed then.
The Westin, built on a filled flood plain, AKA swamp, is finally dealing with what we all predicted 25 years ago. Caneel, also mostly on flood plain, has dealt with
the consequences so long, they're almost good at it now. They have also, at least in the old, deeper- pocketed, days, hired really good engineers, something no one else has ever thought they needed. Actually, many, perhaps most, of our developments in the VI have been conceived and built by con-men, who have always been sure of being long gone by the time the excrement hits the rotating cooling device. Our Government, while not always actively corrupt, rarely has had a clue what they should be requiring--or how to enforce the controls we are supposed to have.
End of venting.

Well said hugo! We drove all over the island today and were amazed at the clean up efforts! It's all good now! Love the new paved roads on the north shore & gifft hill too!


out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGgInwgI ... ata_player


Sent from my iPhone

Good to see the sunshine on the cameras this fine young morning!

So glad the rain has stopped and the sun is out! Looks like the water is clearing up now, too. Good luck in your cleanup efforts everyone. Maybe it's time the construction stops on island, huh???