17 September, 2017
Another victim of the historic hurricane was the billionaire business magnate Richard Branson, who took to Twitter over the weekend to show the devastation Irma wreaked on Necker Island-his private island in the Caribbean.
"It's just carnage here", Freeman Rogers, a local resident and the editor of the BVI Beacon, told The Washington Post last week.
With the exception of Richard Branson, Tim Duncan, Mike Bloomberg, Kenny Chesney and the Band Phish, not numerous celebrities, who often vacation in these islands, have bothered to pitch in. "Hurricane Irma was the most ferocious, cruel and merciless storm".
She flew to Puerto Rico to welcome them and said they would be staying with her, her husband and their two children in Atlanta until life returned to normal in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
About 1,000 troops are now in the region providing aid in the wake of Hurricane Irma. The airport remains closed, but relief flights and U.S. Marines are finally getting in. It has been forever linked to then-Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who powerfully called for substantial aid to Europe during a speech at Harvard University in 1947. Trump also declared a major disaster in Puerto Rico, ordering federal aid to supplement local recovery efforts. We are still assessing the damage, but whole houses and trees have disappeared.
"I've learned that numerous islanders are walking around neighborhoods smelling for cooking and pleading for the kindness of strangers", said Grapski.
The Royal Navy's fleet flagship has set sail for the Caribbean loaded with long-term emergency supplies for British territories devastated by the storm.
Yet these are the same professionals and talent who are overlooked by these countries for contracts and jobs but in crisis, are the first ones who are expected to help.
On Wednesday, the eye of the storm passed directly over the island of Barbuda, leaving the underdeveloped oasis barely habitable.
Meanwhile, a second ship HMS Ocean has been deployed to provide aid and assist the reconstruction effort.
"The boats are piled up like matchsticks in the harbor", he wrote of the wreckage.
For the most part, these locations have deep water berthing facilities that enable the lines to bring some of their largest ships directly onshore.
"It's just rubble in most of the areas ... it nearly looks like a bomb had exploded in the area", Howell said, before adding that rebuilding the islands will start "from scratch".
Expats and tourists living in the British Virgin Islands have spoken of their shock at the extent of the damage.
"It was disgusting", she said of the hurricane.
Knight, originally from Dorset, has lived on the island for the past four years. "That was a bad one, but this was worse than anything I've seen". "For the coming tourism season, we're screwed", said Paco Benito, manager of the Riu Palace hotel.
"Outside of the bunker, bathroom and bedroom doors and windows have flown 40 feet away".
The Category 5 storm, which ravaged the islands with near-record, sustained 185mph winds, battered an estimated 1.2 million people.
