Goodbye, Irene!
Tropical Storm Irene raked across St. Croix during the night, bringing heavy winds and rain to the territory including St. John. The Governor declared a State of Emergency. The Sprauve School in Cruz Bay was opened as an emergency shelter. Winds of 40-60 miles an hour blew through the islands accompanied by as many as 10 inches of rain.
At about 6 p.m. Sunday, video of the storm was taken by Scooterlkn, using his Motorola cell phone, from Grande Bay. "So much for that end of summer vacation, eh?!," he said. (The fact that it's on YouTube this morning suggests there's some power in Cruz Bay.)
Checking some of the island's Webcams, it appears power was still out in some places. The St. John Spicecam went down Sunday morning. Villa Serendipity at Chocolate Hole failed Sunday night, but was back online by 9:30 a.m. Monday.
In Coral Bay, Crabby's posted on Storm Carib Sunday night that power was still on.
"Well, we decided to board up the east and south facing windows, and that was a good decision. We continue to get rain along with wind gusts reaching 35 knots – not as impressive as Bethany Man, who is getting 55 knot gusts, but pretty alarming when you think that something could potentially be flying your way in it. "
On Gifft Hill, Beachguyvi1 posted, "We are getting slammed. Many trees down…horrible winds and rain. Thank God for rum punch!"
Monday morning, all flights scheduled to depart St. Thomas before Noon had been canceled. Afternoon departures were shown as operating. FlightStats.com
It looks like the Beach Bar Cam is up and running this morning.
Sounds like St. John fared pretty well. Hooray!
Doesn’t look too bad. I hear Puerto Rico got hit a little harder. I live in SW Florida, so we are keeping an eye on Irene here.