Sheena George was living in Barbados when Irma hit. She had heard about the damage in the VI, but when she moved to the territory in 2018, she was shocked by the extent of the wreckage. Having never experienced a major hurricane herself, she didn’t realise the complexity of building a territory back from such devastation, she said. “Not having an understanding of how long insurance payouts would take, accessing materials from overseas, things that have an impact on the amount of time it takes to fully recover, I wouldn’t have known that,” she said. Despite these setbacks, she has been impressed with the territory’s recovery, and thinks that government did an excellent job at quickly establishing physical locations for its services, she said.
With violence rising in South Africa, Melissa Nelson and her husband decided to move back to the VI so that they could raise their child in a safer environment. They returned to the territory a month after Irma, and for the first month after their arrival, Ms. Nelson’s husband had to scoop water out of the cistern so that they could bathe. She said her heart was broken by the destruction, by the rows of palm trees on Cane Garden Bay that had been mowed down. But she finds it inspiring that two years after the storm, people are still determined to rebuild. “Seeing stuff like that gives you hope,” she said
While Mark Chapman was on vacation in Switzerland in 2017, Hurricane Irma struck the Virgin Islands. Mr. Chapman’s son urged him not to come back, but Mr. Chapman, who owns six dogs and has lived in the terri tory for more than three decades, knew that was not an option. After returning home, he was impressed by how quickly the territory pulled itself together, given the magnitude of the storm. “It went from a fairly lawless place to pretty comfortable,” he said. Two years after the fact, Mr. Chapman thinks that the territory still lacks some comforts — he finds the mail system frustrating — but that some aspects of the infrastructure have been built back stronger than they were before.
Originally from the Dominican Republic, Kendra Nisbett moved to the VI three weeks after the storm hit. Conditions in the territory were “horrible” when she first arrived, but she stayed positive watching government move to rebuild so quickly. The recovery process moved faster than she thought it would, though she thinks that certain issues, like the lack of streetlights illuminated at night, need more attention, she said.
Hurricane Irma left Keino Phillips without a job, but then gave him another one. Before the storm he had been working for a charter company, but afterwards he got a job in a government-funded demolition crew, taking down buildings that were left uninhabitable. He described the recovery process as a group effort, with everyone pitching in where they could. Still, there is much left to be done, he said.
Joy Solomon’s bedroom was destroyed by Hurricane Irma. Many of her belongings blew out of her windows, water leaked through her ceiling, and later mould started to grow. For months she slept on the floor. The mould started to affect her health, and she recently had to move in with her daughter. Though Ms. Solomon thinks the recovery has gone well for the most part, she said many people haven’t received enough financial assistance to make needed repairs.
Damian Watson doesn’t like to relive the aftermath of Irma. “The recovery process was painful; you had to be mentally strong,” he said. He thinks the territory is recovering as fast as possible from such a devastating storm, and that the process shouldn’t be rushed, so that building regulations and other safeguards can be properly reviewed, he said.
