Tropical Storm Ernesto brought severe flooding and strong winds that downed trees across the area. Virgin Islanders joined forces Wednesday to help clean up and remove the mud and debris left behind.
Governor Albert Bryan Jr. and Virginia Territorial Emergency Management Director Daryl Jaschen provided regular livestream updates throughout the day, urging drivers to stay home so Virginia Department of Water and Power line crews could work on repairs. The Daily News posted the regular updates on its website, www.virginislandsdailynews.com.
All public schools will remain closed today. Teachers should report to campus to inspect classrooms for damage. Updates will be provided on the possibility of schools reopening on Friday.
The University of the Virgin Islands campuses are scheduled to reopen today.
Government employees should report to work at 8 a.m. today. Normal operations will resume at 10 a.m.
The airports on St. Thomas and St. Croix reopened at noon on Wednesday, but Jaschen advised travelers to check with their airlines about possible delays.
Ernesto remained a tropical storm as it moved across the territory and became a hurricane around 2 p.m. Wednesday after leaving the area, Jaschen said.
But strong winds and rain continued on Wednesday morning, worsening the flooding and making repair work difficult for WAPA teams.
The U.S. Coast Guard was still assessing conditions in the ports of St. Thomas and St. John on Wednesday. Jaschen said work would continue this morning with the goal of reopening the ports soon and resuming ferry and barge traffic.
“But at this point in time we don’t have an opening date yet,” Jaschen said on Wednesday at 5 p.m.
The Department of Public Works will conduct a damage assessment on Water Island, and Jaschen said they expect passenger ferry service on Water Island to resume today and barge service to resume on Friday.
A total of 15 ships broke loose from their anchorages throughout the area, Jaschen said, including one off Water Island, one in Frederiksted Harbor, three off Christiansted, three off St. John and eight off St. Thomas – four ran aground on the Charlotte Amalie waterfront, two at the Holiday Inn, one at Cowpet and one at Vessup.
“We rescued a few people from their boats last night,” said Jaschen.
The Hotel and Tourism Association has been talking to travelers. “We have 15,000 tourists in the area, so we are working with them right now,” Jaschen said. He said he will bring those still on St. John back to St. Thomas so they can get to the airport.
Ernesto has shredded trees and bushes, leaving behind huge amounts of wood and debris that need to be collected and disposed of.
While the Anguilla landfill on St. Croix accepts green waste, the Bovoni landfill on St. Thomas has stopped accepting green waste since a major fire at the landfill in September 2023.
Jaschen said the VI Waste Management Authority will provide temporary green waste dumping sites from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. starting today through Sunday.
On St. Thomas, specially marked organic waste bins will be available at the Estate Nazareth and Cancryn landfills during this time.
On St. John, green waste is temporarily being accepted at the Susannaberg transfer station, and the Anguilla landfill on St. Croix continues to accept green waste.
The landfills will reopen at noon today. Bulky waste will be accepted in specially marked containers on St. Thomas at the Nazareth and Cancryn locations and at the Mandahl Convenience Center on Saturday and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Bulky waste will also be accepted at this time at the Susannaberg transfer station on St. John and the Anguilla landfill on St. Croix.
Jaschen said VITEMA is working closely with Liberty, Viya and T-Mobile. Three of Liberty’s 23 sites are down and are currently being repaired, “so there has been some disruption to our communications, but we should be back up and running very soon.”
WAPA CEO Karl Knight thanked customers for their patience and said the Harley Power Plant on St. Thomas “weathered the storm very successfully” thanks to the operations crew who kept the generators running throughout the night to provide power to Schneider Hospital.
Units 15 and 23, as well as two Wartsilas, are operational, “so we can take on the full generation load while we restore the feeders into the evening,” Knight said.
He also thanked Unit 23, “known for its fussiness, for actually staying online when we needed it most.”
The storm lingered longer than expected Wednesday morning, “but crews were able to restore feeder 6A from the plant to Fortuna and 7B from the plant to the Raphune Hill area. Feeder 10B is fully restored,” 7C to Cassi Hill, 9C to Nadir, and 7E and 9E serving Cruz Bay, “and we continue to work to restore the remaining feeder routes,” Knight said.
“We expect to have some problems with 7A,” Knight said, because “we were already experiencing difficulties and disruptions on 7A before the storm.”
Customers on the 7A feeder on the north side were without power for most of Tuesday and lost power permanently along with more than 21,000 other customers on St. Thomas and St. John. More than 24,000 customers on St. Croix were without power during the storm.
Knight said isolated power outages will continue to occur due to damage to weatherheads and meter bases, and customers are encouraged to report ongoing power outages to WAPA.
“The system has proven to be remarkably resilient,” Knight said, and the trees on the lines “were probably the biggest problem in this restoration process or the reason the feeders were removed.”
He added that hazard mitigation measures taken after the 2017 hurricanes had “paid off” and WAPA had not lost a single tower on St. Thomas or St. John.
On St. Croix, seven wooden poles were lost, “so I think some of our investments in undergrounding and composite poles are now starting to pay off,” Knight said.
However, the generators at the Richmond power plant failed and “we struggled most of the day to get one of our gas turbines running again,” Knight said.
Block 17 was put into operation on Thursday afternoon, Aggrekos is also under construction and work is still ongoing on Block 20, Knight said.
While tree damage in the rainforest is hampering repair efforts in the area, Knight said he expects power to be restored to 75 percent of St. Croix’s customers by Wednesday evening.
“We will continue into the night as long as we can do so safely,” Knight said.
As of 8:30 p.m., 14,000 WAPA customers were still without power on St. Thomas and St. John, and 15,600 customers were without power on St. Croix.
A water main break on St. Thomas serving the airport and Bournefield has been repaired, and water pressure for WAPA customers across the area is expected to return to normal once power is restored to pumping stations.
Bryan warned that with such heavy rain, the risk of storms could still exist.
“With all this rain, there will undoubtedly be landslides at some point,” Bryan said.
He also urged drivers to remain cautious and watch out for WAPA teams.
“They have to get their linemen out. Of course we want to turn the power on, but we don’t know where the lines are down, so we can’t just turn the power on. We have to make sure that when we energize the grid, we don’t electrocute anyone. We don’t want to electrocute anyone,” Bryan said.
Jason Julius, a WAPA lineman, was electrocuted while working in a cherry picker on 10th Street in Sugar Estate on September 11, 2017, days after Hurricane Irma struck St. Thomas.
Julius accidentally came into contact with the live wires and died. His widow, Faye Liburd, filed suit against WAPA in 2018 on behalf of his estate and children. Liburd also filed a separate lawsuit against former WAPA executives Clinton Hedrington and Niel Vanterpool.
The lawsuit alleges that Hedrington and Vanterpool failed to make the “minimal effort” to de-energize the lines and “instead improperly directed Julius to perform work on energized lines/equipment.”
According to VI Superior Court records, both cases are still pending.
