美国国家公共电台 NPR Visitors Slowly Returning To Virgin Islands After Hurricanes' Destruction

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the U.S. Virgin¹ Islands so hard. Let's travel there now with NPR's Greg Allen to see how people on the islands are doing.

GREG ALLEN, BYLINE²: At the beach in Magens Bay, the party is back on.

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ALLEN: Open-air taxis bring loads of visitors direct from the cruise ship docks for a day of swimming, sunbathing³ and people-watching on St. Thomas's most popular beach. Chris Dimopoulos runs the bar, serving up margaritas, rum punches and something called The Painkiller⁴. Today, he says, the first cruise ship passengers began arriving before 10:00 a.m.

CHRIS DIMOPOULOS: We're seeing a recovery slowly but surely, and every day gets a little bit better.

ALLEN: On St. Thomas and St. Croix, the power is mostly back. The cruise ship ports are in good shape. Restaurants and shops are open. But Gary Beck, visiting with his family from Toronto, says the impact of the storms is still obvious.

GARY BECK: When we were driving here, we saw a boat in the water - underwater. We saw some of the buildings with no roofs on them. We saw homes that were pushed together.

ALLEN: In early September, Hurricane Irma hit the Virgin Islands as a Category 5 storm with wind gusts⁵ as high as 225 miles per hour. Irma's high winds tore out roofs and windows across the islands. Two weeks later, Hurricane Maria, another Cat 5 storm, slammed into the Virgin Islands with a storm surge followed by weeks of rain. Joel Kling rode out those storms at the hotel he manages, the Emerald Beach Resort.

JOEL KLING: We have water rising in the rooms, sand in the roads. Building 3 and 4, we have mud running from the hill, filling the entire floor with mud.

ALLEN: Four months later, Emerald Beach is back. Using his own staff, plus some island contractors⁶, Kling cleared the hurricane debris⁷, repaired the rooms and replanted the gardens. He shows me the beachside bar, restaurant and pool - all were wrecked⁸ in the storms.

KLING: We've got new shutters⁹. Our sound system is up and running. The bar was totally redone. The pool was totally redone.

ALLEN: Kling's 90-room hotel is once again hosting weddings. Nicole Lore¹⁰ was here from Maryland for her best friend's wedding, planned before the hurricanes.

NICOLE LORE: We were pretty nervous about it. She thought about switching it, but then she decided¹¹ to stay. We're glad that we stayed, though. It's really nice.

ALLEN: Throughout the Virgin Islands, many of the small and midsize hotels have reopened. And there are villas¹² and timeshares available. But that said, nearly three-quarters of the hotel rooms remain out of commission. That's because most of the large resorts, which took the most damage, will remain closed for the rest of this season and maybe much of the next. Lisa Hamilton, with the Virgin Islands Hotel and Tourism Association, says the airlines responded to the decline in available rooms by cutting the number of flights.

LISA HAMILTON: We went from over 13 direct flights a day from the mainland U.S. to three, and they're slowly coming back. American added a second one. They're looking at the hotel rooms and the demand. I do know the planes are full coming in here, so people are ready to come back.

ALLEN: The government here says direct spending on tourism accounts for nearly a third of the economy. Adding indirect revenues, one estimate puts tourism at 60 to 80 percent of the island's economy. But many here say it will likely be two years or even longer until all the resorts reopen. Andrew Klutz with the island's economic development authority says, on the plus side, resorts now can redesign their properties and upgrade them. That's important, he says, as the Virgin Islands competes with other Caribbean destinations.

ANDREW KLUTZ: This is an opportunity for VI properties to basically reinvent themselves and reinvest and have a completely new product on the market.

ALLEN: The owners of St. Thomas's largest resort, Frenchman's Reef, are the island's second-largest employer. They're planning a $200 million rebuild but have an uncertain timetable for reopening, which for now leaves hundreds out of work. Until the resorts rebuild, the economy in the Virgin Islands won't bounce back.

Greg Allen, NPR News, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.

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1 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 sunbathing   

n.日光浴

参考例句：

• tourists sunbathing on the beach 在海滩上沐浴着阳光的游客
• We've been sunbathing on the beach. 我们一直在海滩上晒日光浴。

4 painkiller   

n.止痛药

参考例句：

• I shall persuade him to take the painkiller.我将说服他把药吃下去。
• The painkiller only provides him a short respite from his pain.止痛药仅仅让他在疼痛中有短暂的疏解。

5 gusts   

一阵强风( gust的名词复数 )； （怒、笑等的）爆发； （感情的）迸发； 发作

参考例句：

• Her profuse skirt bosomed out with the gusts. 她的宽大的裙子被风吹得鼓鼓的。
• Turbulence is defined as a series of irregular gusts. 紊流定义为一组无规则的突风。

6 contractors   

n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We got estimates from three different contractors before accepting the lowest. 我们得到3个承包商的报价后，接受了最低的报价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Contractors winning construction jobs had to kick back 2 per cent of the contract price to the mafia. 赢得建筑工作的承包商得抽出合同价格的百分之二的回扣给黑手党。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

8 wrecked   

adj.失事的，遇难的

参考例句：

• the hulk of a wrecked ship 遇难轮船的残骸
• the salvage of the wrecked tanker 对失事油轮的打捞

9 shutters   

百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门

参考例句：

• The shop-front is fitted with rolling shutters. 那商店的店门装有卷门。
• The shutters thumped the wall in the wind. 在风中百叶窗砰砰地碰在墙上。

10 lore   

n.传说；学问，经验，知识

参考例句：

• I will seek and question him of his lore.我倒要找上他，向他讨教他的渊博的学问。
• Early peoples passed on plant and animal lore through legend.早期人类通过传说传递有关植物和动物的知识。

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 villas   

别墅，公馆( villa的名词复数 )； （城郊）住宅

参考例句：

• Magnificent villas are found throughout Italy. 在意大利到处可看到豪华的别墅。
• Rich men came down from wealthy Rome to build sea-side villas. 有钱人从富有的罗马来到这儿建造海滨别墅。