Children listen to a story at the Long Trench Community Centre on Sunday, Oct. 1. Assessments are ongoing to gauge what repairs need to be made to secure the facility, where displaced residents have been living since Hurricane Irma, after the storm blew out several doors and windows. Other community centres around the territory are also being assessed and repaired. Photo: FREEMAN ROGERS

Fewer than 100 people are now living in public shelters around the territory, down from more than 300 in the days after Hurricane Irma, according to Department of Disaster Management Director Sharleen DaBreo.

“Then numbers have gone down drastically, so every day it’s a different number,” Ms. DaBreo said Tuesday.

Children listen to a story at the Long Trench Community Centre on Sunday, Oct. 1. Assessments are ongoing to gauge what repairs need to be made to secure the facility, where displaced residents have been living since Hurricane Irma, after the storm blew out several doors and windows. Other community centres around the territory are also being assessed and repaired. Photo: FREEMAN ROGERS
Currently, a total of eight shelters are open on Tortola, Virgin Gorda, Jost Van Dyke and Anegada, according to the DDM director.

In part because some of them are in schools that government hopes will restart classes soon, the Ministry of Health and Social Development has been assessing and repairing community centres that were damaged in the storm.

“The shelters at schools, we have to try to get them closed so that schools can resume operations,” Ms. DaBreo said.

Community centres

The ministry team started with the East End/Long Look Community Centre, an official shelter that was badly damaged during Irma, forcing refuge seekers to kick open doors at the nearby Francis Lettsome Primary School.

“The roof has been fitted back onto that structure, and anyone that is [sheltering] in the East End area will then move into that shelter,” Ms. DaBreo said.

Those numbers might be small: At the start of last week some 40 people were living at Francis Lettsome, but by Monday of this week there was only one occupant there, she said.

Meanwhile, assessment is ongoing at other community centres — including the one at Long Trench, where people are already living — so that residents sheltering in nearby schools can move into them as soon as possible, she said.

Road Town shelter

Though some residents living in the Multi-purpose Sports Complex in Road Town said they had been told they would need to leave this week, Ms. DaBreo said she doesn’t expect that shelter to close so soon.

However, she added, a team that includes volunteers from Rotary and Team Rubicon is working with shelter occupants to help them move back home or to join friends and family.

“They’re assessing the homes of those individuals in [the Multi-purpose Sports Complex] and other shelters throughout the territory, and they’re going to be carrying out repairs to homes so we can get them back in,” Ms. DaBreo said.

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