St. Thomas, USVI

Yesterday we took passengers over to St. Thomas for FEMA and they needed around 4 hours on the ground. This was our first trip over to the Island since the hurricane and from a distance, the southwest corner of the Island looked pretty good compared to what we had been seeing on a daily basis from our food and water hauling missions in Puerto Rico. From 500 feet, they had vegetation and trees still standing, so we didn’t think they got hit nearly as bad until we were able to take an open air truck taxi to the northeast corner of the island and see a huge difference. As I mentioned earlier, the passengers needed around 4 hours, so instead of just hanging out at the chopper, we took advantage of being there and took the taxi (which took us around the entire Island for $2 bucks a person and it took around 1.5 hours with many, many stops) and we were able to see it all! Aaron and I have been here so many times on a cruise ship stop…..but obviously this place looks entirely different not having a single shop open for business or around 300 vendors set up waiting for cruise ship passengers. It was also so sad to see such destruction, but according to the locals, they fared way better than Puerto Rico due to their tougher building codes and regulations….so I’d imagine they will be up and running much sooner….and those cruise ships will be back before you know it bringing back lots of business! St. Thomas will be beautiful once again…..