St Thomas thrives

KEINO SWAMBER on assignment in St Thomas

Just over one year after category five hurricanes Irma and Maria barrelled through the island of St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands last September, recovery work is still ongoing. And for the USVI’s Lt Governor Osbert Potter, it has presented some challenges as well as opportunities.

It’s a job with a price tag of a whopping US$8.5 billion.

Speaking with Business Day during a Liat intra-Caribbean press trip hosted by the USVI Department of Tourism on Tuesday, Potter said although the hurricanes set the island’s developmental plans back by about two years, they are open for business.

The island has a population of approximately 51,634 people and tourism is its main economic driver.

According to 2013 statistics, nearly three million tourists visit annually–the majority arriving by cruise ships–spending a total of some US$1.32 billion.

The tourism sector took a hit after the hurricanes, dubbed Irma-ria by the locals, in a manner which Potter was unable to quantify in dollars and cents. Five people died.

“Business is just about back to normal,” he said.

“We still have facilities and structures which need to be rebuilt. We lost about six schools, our two hospitals were seriously damaged and we are looking to rebuild those from scratch, a lot of our roads were severely damaged also, we’ve been working, as much as we can, on burying our power lines.

“We feel good. Our tourism product is picking up. We have two of our major hotels which are still offline and they are taking this time to totally renovate.”

Potter said one of them, Frenchman’s Reef Marriott Resort, had already planned to do a massive refurbishment of its facility, but the hurricanes gave the operators the opportunity to just rebuild.

Schools, he said, were reopened about one month after the storms, but on a shift system.

“We are finding ways to bring back normalcy to the territory. We feel good that we are able to sustain and bounce back after two category five back-to-back hurricanes.”

Potter said the outlook is positive with new flights going to the territory from Atlanta, Boston and New York.

Asked what was the greatest challenge, he simply responded “time”.

“It takes time to rebuild. We know what we want to do, we know how it’s going to be financed, but the design and engineering for a lot of the structures that have to be built is going to take some time. We have indicated to our public that you can expect the entire rebuild to take anywhere from three to five years. The challenge, in addition to that is getting the public to be patient and understand that recovery and rebuilding of the territory after those storms is not something that happens in one year.”

The money for such an undertaking is coming from the Federal Government.

“We are a territory of the United States of America and they have funds which are released after catastrophes throughout the nation.”

Potter said socially the people of St Thomas are back to normal after having experienced loss of power for about three months.

“There was some uneasiness and restlessness because the place was dark, but after the generators started kicking in and the rebuilding of a system came on stream, everyone relaxed a bit – so the social aspect was not heavily impacted.”

Full power, he said, was restored about four months after the hurricanes.

As for the community effort demonstrated by the citizens, Potter said this is what warmed him the most.

“The whole community pitched in. Those that could help, helped. Those that needed help were helped. Once a hurricane passes through, it changes the mindset of everyone. Unfortunately after everything gets done, people get back to their normal way of life and they may not be as accommodating to their neighbours as they would during a disaster.”