美国国家公共电台 NPR Visitors Slowly Returning To Virgin Islands After Hurricanes' Destruction

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the U.S. Virgin 1 Islands so hard. Let's travel there now with NPR's Greg Allen to see how people on the islands are doing.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE 2: At the beach in Magens Bay, the party is back on.

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ALLEN: Open-air taxis bring loads of visitors direct from the cruise ship docks for a day of swimming, sunbathing 3 and people-watching on St. Thomas's most popular beach. Chris Dimopoulos runs the bar, serving up margaritas, rum punches and something called The Painkiller 4. Today, he says, the first cruise ship passengers began arriving before 10:00 a.m.

CHRIS DIMOPOULOS: We're seeing a recovery slowly but surely, and every day gets a little bit better.

ALLEN: On St. Thomas and St. Croix, the power is mostly back. The cruise ship ports are in good shape. Restaurants and shops are open. But Gary Beck, visiting with his family from Toronto, says the impact of the storms is still obvious.

GARY BECK: When we were driving here, we saw a boat in the water - underwater. We saw some of the buildings with no roofs on them. We saw homes that were pushed together.

ALLEN: In early September, Hurricane Irma hit the Virgin Islands as a Category 5 storm with wind gusts 5 as high as 225 miles per hour. Irma's high winds tore out roofs and windows across the islands. Two weeks later, Hurricane Maria, another Cat 5 storm, slammed into the Virgin Islands with a storm surge followed by weeks of rain. Joel Kling rode out those storms at the hotel he manages, the Emerald Beach Resort.

JOEL KLING: We have water rising in the rooms, sand in the roads. Building 3 and 4, we have mud running from the hill, filling the entire floor with mud.

ALLEN: Four months later, Emerald Beach is back. Using his own staff, plus some island contractors 6, Kling cleared the hurricane debris 7, repaired the rooms and replanted the gardens. He shows me the beachside bar, restaurant and pool - all were wrecked 8 in the storms.

KLING: We've got new shutters 9. Our sound system is up and running. The bar was totally redone. The pool was totally redone.

ALLEN: Kling's 90-room hotel is once again hosting weddings. Nicole Lore 10 was here from Maryland for her best friend's wedding, planned before the hurricanes.

NICOLE LORE: We were pretty nervous about it. She thought about switching it, but then she decided 11 to stay. We're glad that we stayed, though. It's really nice.

ALLEN: Throughout the Virgin Islands, many of the small and midsize hotels have reopened. And there are villas 12 and timeshares available. But that said, nearly three-quarters of the hotel rooms remain out of commission. That's because most of the large resorts, which took the most damage, will remain closed for the rest of this season and maybe much of the next. Lisa Hamilton, with the Virgin Islands Hotel and Tourism Association, says the airlines responded to the decline in available rooms by cutting the number of flights.

LISA HAMILTON: We went from over 13 direct flights a day from the mainland U.S. to three, and they're slowly coming back. American added a second one. They're looking at the hotel rooms and the demand. I do know the planes are full coming in here, so people are ready to come back.

ALLEN: The government here says direct spending on tourism accounts for nearly a third of the economy. Adding indirect revenues, one estimate puts tourism at 60 to 80 percent of the island's economy. But many here say it will likely be two years or even longer until all the resorts reopen. Andrew Klutz with the island's economic development authority says, on the plus side, resorts now can redesign their properties and upgrade them. That's important, he says, as the Virgin Islands competes with other Caribbean destinations.

ANDREW KLUTZ: This is an opportunity for VI properties to basically reinvent themselves and reinvest and have a completely new product on the market.

ALLEN: The owners of St. Thomas's largest resort, Frenchman's Reef, are the island's second-largest employer. They're planning a $200 million rebuild but have an uncertain timetable for reopening, which for now leaves hundreds out of work. Until the resorts rebuild, the economy in the Virgin Islands won't bounce back.

Greg Allen, NPR News, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

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