Posts

Showing posts from March, 2018

In the Wake of the Storm: Tortola after Hurricane Irma.

Image
On September 6, 2017, Hurricane Irma--the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever to make landfall--battered Tortola with 215 mile per winds. Six months later, my family and I flew down to see how Tortola and the other 'Nature's Little Secrets' of the British Virgin Islands had fared.  Look in one direction (above) and it's hard to believe a catergory 5 hurricane devatastated Tortola less than six months ago. Look in the other direction (below) and it isn't. 220 mile an hour sustained winds were hard on this palm grove. Neither motor boat nor monohull was spared from the tidal surge that stacked the boats at Soper's Hole up like plastic toys. Since the mangroves were decimated, a school of minnows is using this inboard boat for protection. Nature is clever. If you are trying to calculate the cost of this storm, this 28 foot inboard boat goes for about three hundred thousand dollars; it's a total loss, and there are hundr