Hear Them Singing

I recall the first time I saw Charlotte Amalie, the pristine, paradisaical seaport capital of St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. From the deck aboard a cruise ship, the town’s pastel-colored houses were visible along and atop verdant green mountains that stretched in an arc around the port. It was stunning.  Tourists like me wandered into town, taking advantage of the local hospitality, while helping feed the economy with our purchases and port taxes.

Visitors early last week likely saw the same St. Thomas.  The island, like her neighbors, was attractive, vibrant and a buzz of activity.  Like the events described in the Jimmy Webb song “The Yard Went On Forever,” I could imagine the people of the town standing in doorways, innocently singing to themselves, watching the peaceful events of the day unfold around them.  Until that day ended.  And another day came. 

It didn’t take much. A single hurricane named Irma and civilization as many of them knew it was gone.  Most visitors had fled, leaving the island’s residents—like residents of many of the Caribbean’s most beautiful island gems—to fend for themselves as their homes, their livelihoods and their society came apart in a matter of hours.  This photo from Charlotte Amalie by Jonathan Falwell (AP) is telling. 

A New York Times article describes the decay of society on the island the desperation of those who remain.  Neighboring islands suffer as well, with hungry, desperate citizens resorting in some cases to lawlessness to survive.  Within the space of a few days, many of the Caribbean’s finest locales went from popular tourist destinations to veritable wastelands of death, crime and destruction.

St. Martin poses an interesting comparative case study in disaster response.  Divided into French and Dutch sides, France has been widely criticized for its slow response in preparing for the disaster.  This New York Times article says:

“A more measured critique came from a former minister of France’s overseas territories, Victorin Lurel, who said that the situation needed more “resources, more logistical planning, more transport and a hospital boat. People could have been evacuated ahead of time,” he said in an interview Sunday on the news channel Europe1. The government response on the Dutch side, he insisted, was better than on the French side….

"In a statement on Sunday, the French interior ministry said that after emergency needs are dealt with, reconstruction will begin. Among its priorities, the statement said, it intends to distribute one million liters of drinking water, secure private property; and get the telecommunications systems running again.... In Britain, lawmakers from both the governing Conservative party, as well as the Labour opposition, have accused the government of failing to take adequate precautions to protect the residents of three British territories lying in the path of Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Jose.”

In his article about the US Virgin Islands, author Luis Ferre-Sadurni wonders, as I do, about the future prospects for the people who live there—how long it will take for them to recover.  The author goes on to say:

"How well the islands, which have about 100,000 full-time residents, would be able to manage a long-term relief effort was unclear.  Purchased by the United States 100 years ago from Denmark for $25 million in gold, the islands have long been buoyed by tourism. But the closing of a large oil refinery several years ago wiped out a large piece of the Virgin Islands’ tax base, contributing to a debt crisis similar to that of Puerto Rico, its larger Caribbean neighbor. For years the islands borrowed from its catastrophe insurance fund to meet other demands.  And now the islands’ status as an easy vacation getaway seems, for now, to be in doubt."

Scott Neuman, in a piece for National Public Radio, quotes French President Emmanuel Macron noting “his country was ‘grief-stricken’ by the destruction on St. Martin. Macron tied the destruction to climate change, saying the world must act now ‘so we can avoid such natural disasters in the future.’”

All agree with the French president that it would be nice to avoid such natural disasters in the future.  How that’s done, or even if it’s possible to mitigate all potential damage and destruction from these storms, is a worthy topic of discussion in the weeks and months ahead.  What’s clear, however, is that something must be done.  We cannot continue to expect the Caribbean people and their host islands to be raked by storm after storm and then simply rebound and rebuild so we can travel there to sunbathe.

We must do this together.  More serious preparation and planning are necessary.  And yes, that will take money; but nothing will change without the united resolve of the all of the larger countries with interests in the area--the US, the UK, France, the Netherlands--to help create more resilient structures and economies in the islands.  My hope is that with time and with care, the quaint Charlotte Amalie I remember can be restored.

To learn how to give in support of the people of the Caribbean, please refer to this site:

https://www.cidi.org/how-disaster-relief-works/guidelines-for-giving/