Power Is Restored to Most of U.S. Virgin Islands After Hurricanes, Officials Say

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Power Is Restored to Most of U.S. Virgin Islands After Hurricanes, Officials Say

By PATRICIA MAZZEI JAN. 9, 2018

Months after two Category 5 hurricanes pummeled the United States Virgin Islands, officials said Tuesday that power has been restored to 92 percent of customers, a significant improvement from even a month ago, when about half of them remained in the dark.

Bringing power back up may help speed recovery in other areas that require basic infrastructure to operate, experts say, even as Gov. Kenneth E. Mapp estimated Tuesday that there was a long way to go after Hurricanes Irma and Maria.

Hospitals that sustained major structural damage on the islands, home to some 103,000 people mainly on St. Croix, St. John and St. Thomas, continue to evacuate patients in serious condition to the mainland, Mr. Mapp said in an interview. Schools that have managed to reopen are juggling double sessions to accommodate students, and tourism — the economy’s lifeblood — is still slow, Mr. Mapp said.

The destruction the storms left on the islands — about 90 percent of customers lacked power in September — was at times overshadowed by the catastrophic devastation on neighboring Puerto Rico. About half of Puerto Rico’s more than three million people still do not have electricity, the government acknowledged on Dec. 29, 100 days after Maria cut its brutal path across the island.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/09/us/virgin-islands-power.html

[Eliot Rosewater]

1. In spite of the trump admin goal to harm them.