Well, we made it through our first hurricane in the Caribbean. Category 5 at that. We got really lucky that the track of the hurricane had shifted North a bit. The eye of the storm passed between St. Thomas and the BVI causing much more damage to those islands.
While I am not sure of the extent of the St. Croix damage since the curfew has not been lifted yet, I know through social media that we have lost many trees, there is much flooding, power is out all over the island, and I’m sure our coastlines have been damaged.
We weren’t able to get the cap off the cistern to get water from it, so we filled the bathtub up before loosing power and also filled the sinks. We’ve also been collecting rain water in buckets from the porches and using that to reserve the water in the sinks and bathtub. We can’t flush like normal because the pumps have no electric to bring up water from the cistern. Without the water we would have a very stinky situation on our hands. As long as it continues to rain while the power is out we should have no issues. We are on the hospital power grid so we should get service first before the rest of the island. I think that will be sometime today.
Last night we ate Spaghetti O’s on the gas stove. It totally makes sense why everyone has gas here rather than electric since the power goes out so often. It’s nice to have a hot meal at a time like this!
After a day and a half with no shower, we decided to go outside in bathing suits today and shower in the rain. It was incredibly refreshing! (And a tad bit fun.)
Not a ton of photos yet since the curfew has kept us at the house, although last night we did chainsaw up the tree that fell in our front yard blocking the road from passage that landed on our neighbor’s van. That was a beautiful tree and now the row of 5 has a missing gap in it.
Other than that, we’ve had no damage to ourselves, the house, or my Jeep (although I saw a tree about to topple over on it yesterday so I moved it up closer to the house during the middle of the storm.)
We kept ourselves busy throughout the day doing random things. I spent 6 hours drawing plans for the house. It’s based on our first choice lot though so if we don’t get it I’ll be redoing everything. I will probably have more time today to work on them. I still have the side and rear elevations to do. At some point I’ll share the drawings.
Most of our friends are without power right now too (I think one managed to keep it) but the good news is no one got hurt. I feel like we’ve been through a right of passage with everyone. The islanders have been incredibly nice, all helping one another and checking in. The sense of community here is much stronger than I’m used to (even when there isn’t a storm.) I guess it’s necessary when you live on a small island.
While the eye of the storm was packing winds of 180MPH, we saw wind gusts upwards of 80-100MPH.
Its headed for our second home in FLorida next, and with the scheduling of the storm’s arrival, looks like it may delay us getting back there a week! Thats no good as we have a lot scheduled right now to finish the move, go to a wedding, and do a site visit for Backwoods Music Festival, as well as rent out the lake house prior to October 1st.
If we can get out and about later, I’ll see if I can get some photos. Right now the cell signal isn’t strong enough to upload the couple that we took. Maybe that will change when the power comes back on!