【Swipe】

Hurricane warnings in the U.S. Virgin Islands are,Swipe largely, a disrupter. It happens every year. Tourists leave on the advice of the Weather Channel, new island residents that have never experienced a hurricane wring their hands, servers and bartenders grouse about the loss of business, old timers recount stories of past hurricanes like a badge of honor.

Usually nothing comes of these storms. Afterward everyone has a good chuckle about the high-strung weathermen who got it all wrong.

Hurricane Irma was different. Instead of going north, as many projected, Irma veered southwest and centered its eye directly over the British and U.S. Virgin Islands. By the time islanders understood the severity of what was headed their way, it was too late.

All outgoing flights were booked. Ferries were grounded until after the storm. The government issued a 36-hour curfew that prohibited people from leaving their houses. Government relief agencies were still days away from landing on island. All people could do was hunker down in a concrete building and hope for the best. These are just a few stories from those dark hours…

VERONICA POZAS, 28

I stood in my bathroom and watched my neighbor’s roof just peel off. The noise was indescribable. Everything was so loud and high-pitched. I couldn’t open doors or move. The pressure was so uncomfortable.

Our cistern was overflowing into our apartment. Water was everywhere. In the ceiling there was a bubble of water with a stream flooding down. I remember thinking it looked like an art sculpture fountain where there’s a stream of water coming out in front.

We grabbed Duct tape and tried to make a ramp to funnel the water into the bucket and away from the ceiling. We had thought we were in such a safe house. Then we looked outside and everyone started crying because everything around us was gone. Every structure was gone.

COLLEEN QUIGLEY, 30

At first, the wind sounded like someone was whistling outside. Then the sound turned into a chainsaw. You could feel the pressure in your ears. It was the worst ear pain I’ve ever experienced in my life, times ten.

The water in our apartment was five inches high. I was seeing my bras and underwear float around in my bedroom. I remember the feeling of the mattress flying up on me as I tried to push it back as I stood on top of our bureau.

Eventually we broke our bureau apart, found some nails and hammered it over one of the windows. It wasn’t like, “I’m afraid of this storm.” It was like, “I’m afraid I’m going to die.” We went to a nearby guest house, trying find a dry place to sleep. We were out of places to go.

We broke window panes to get in. We found a place that had a dry bed so all three of us slept in one bed. It was the best option and, still, it had an inch of water on the floor. Every time we heard a bang or a gust of wind, we thought we were about to go through the storm all over again. Nobody knew what time it was or when the storm was going to end.

ALESIA GEORGIOU

I can’t describe the sound of the wind, but try to imagine what it sounds/feels like inside the jet engine of a 757 as it’s flying through turbulence. The wind was clocked at 220 mph. It included mini-tornadoes which touched down and flipped cars, and dismantled structures including some made of concrete.

My friends and I (six humans, three cats, and two dogs) stayed in a masonry house in Fish Bay. As the storm was nearly at its peak, I opened the bedroom door to check on the cats. As soon as I did, I watched steel shutters which had been bolted into concrete just fly away as if they had been made of paper.

The windows in this house all had hurricane glass, and then I watched it shatter and the entire window flew away. This all probably happened in the space of half a second.

In this moment and for the four hours after while the storm raged, I was sure we were going to die. In the morning, we saw that many neighboring houses had been obliterated. Some were partially intact but had fallen down the hillside. There was not a single leaf left on a single tree. The island looks like it’s been through a nuclear holocaust.

ACACIA WALLENBURG, 25

We had a feeling our roof was going to come off so we left our house and evacuated to the Grande Bay resort at the last second.

We had a front row view of the destruction. It flooded and we had 4 inches of water. The porch looked like a fish tank. It was scary inside there. Afterward, we could see our porch using binoculars. My mother and husband went up there later and there was no longer a roof. The storm shutter came off our sliding glass door. There was glass all over the place. Our bedroom door handle shot out of the door and was in the middle of the floor. My child Lincoln’s room was the most damaged. I’m happy we weren’t there.

DAVID ADAMS, 36

There were maybe around 20 people with us on the property, though more came later. The structure is all concrete, but the storm escalated quickly. We saw the ceiling fans fly away. It was like someone installed a jet engine right next to us. The floors and walls were shaking.

And this is one of the most secure buildings on the island. I’ve been here almost six years. The community is coming together to clear the roads. We’re just making sure everyone has food and water. People love each other here. We have a relatively small population. We’re low on the totem pole.

KATE QUIGLEY, 33

We were in what we thought was a safe location: A cement apartment with hurricane-proof glass and a basement. Then we started taking on water, flooding. A window blew out in the bathroom. There were gusts of wind in the living room so we went into my bedroom because it doesn’t have windows.

Then -- pardon my French – shit hit the fan. The bedroom door started shaking. So I jumped up and pushed a bureau up against it. Then another bureau. Eventually we had two people on each side holding two bureaus. And we put two mattresses on top of that to hold it so the door wouldn’t blow in.

We were like that for hours. But we still felt like we were going to be blown away. I’m a nervous pee-er. At first I peed in a jar. Then we set up a cooler where all of us could pee.

MARCEL FREDA, 34

There was so much banging from the storm, but then I heard a sound that I realized was a human sound. When I opened our door, the wind almost pulled me out into the storm. My neighbor had texted and said, “My porch and roof just fell into our house.” Then she had made her way down to us. She ran outside in the middle of the storm. We pushed her into the room and re-barricaded the doors. We were ankle-deep in water. It was raining inside. The hurricane was inside. Water started pouring down around the ceiling lights. I was worried we’d be electrocuted.

But the breaker was in another room, and we couldn’t get to it to shut it off. We were afraid to leave the bedroom. We thought the entire house had been blown away around the room we were trapped in. That’s how bad it sounded. I kept telling myself, “If we can make it one more minute, that’s one more minute we don’t have to be in this storm.” Eventually we went back into the living room and sat on top of the chairs and couches trying to stay dry.

We got off easy. A building 30 feet from ours was completely crushed.

LIZ SULLIVAN, 41

I made a last minute decision to go to my neighbor’s apartment which is right next to mine because it was right next to a rock wall. At 8 a.m., it was like, “This might be okay.” Then the power went out, then the cell towers went out. I thought, “This is still not so bad just some wind and rain. Then around 11 a.m. it started picking up, so I tried to take a nap.

The next thing I know the windows had blown in, they grabbed our phones, grabbed a bible and we all jumped into the bathroom. All of the pressure went out of the room and all of our ears popped.

We prayed, we told each other stories. The storm just got worse and worse and worse. After four-and-a-half hours of being crouched in a bathroom and thinking we were going to die, it finally slowed down enough that we could open the bathroom door.

We went outside and there was not a leaf on any tree. Then we saw a huge river cruise boat up on the national park dock. The surge was that bad. Everything is gone. I went into my apartment. All my windows were blown in, the ceiling and retaining wall were collapsed.

The funny thing is my kitchen was untouched. My dishes were still sitting perfectly in my drying rack.

KRYSTINA MILLER, 33

It was the day after my birthday. There were three of us -- my husband, my friend and I -- in the closet for six hours. I’m not a huge drinker, but I remember thinking at one point, “I need a drink.” You could hear the howling of the wind and the whistling and the windows wobbling. There were noises you’ve never heard in your life.

At one point I heard raining inside the house, and my husband peeked out of the closet and the bedroom ceiling had collapsed.

He watched the window wobbling and suddenly a window exploded and it was like a canon had gone off in the house. Water was coming into the closet. My husband is a person who talks when he’s nervous, and he went silent. I thought, “I’m going to die. This is where it happens. In this closet. Sitting in water.”

It was around 7 p.m. when the winds died down enough that we felt safe to come out. It was dark. We put on our headlamps. We were basically in a war zone. I remember saying, “This is what you see on TV, and you never think you’d live through it.” And my husband said, “But you did, you lived through it.”

MCANALLE NEAL

I had my baby, who’s two months old, under a desk in case debris came in. The wind was blowing so hard that the French doors behind the hurricane shutters started blowing open. Then the roof started leaking. I was nursing my baby trying to keep him calm while the guys were moving all the furniture up against the door trying to keep us safe. I remember thinking that some of the most important people in my life were in harm’s way, but I couldn’t help them because I was protecting my baby.

After a couple of days, I wasn’t producing milk. So I sent my friend into town to see if any stores were open or if anyone had formula. I couldn’t contact anyone and didn’t know if stores were still open or if we were able to leave the island.

Then we started hearing about Hurricane Jose. I just burst into tears. We had just gotten through this disaster and now we had to buckle down for another one?

We drove into Cruz Bay and it was just like an atomic bomb went off. In town, there was a boat evacuating people. People told me, “Run home, go grab your things. Get on this boat, get out of town.”

On Puerto Rico I got off the bus at the first hotel I saw because my baby was tired and hungry. It turned out to be the Ritz. They told me they were offering a special rate of $220 for victims of Hurricane Irma.