TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/120489/12048900.063

Text File | 1990-09-19 | 11KB | 184 lines

TRAVEL, Page 90

Rebuilding Paradise After Hugo

With the high season fast approaching, the battered Caribbean

rushes to be ready

By Nancy Gibbs/ST. CROIX


    What happens to a land beloved for its beauty when the beauty
is ripped away? The northeastern islands of the Caribbean, ringed
by sugary beaches, plush with unlikely flowers, inspiring rummy
tropical dreams, have become the American paradise. Even the
license plates say so. Two months ago, when Hurricane Hugo mowed
across the islands from Guadeloupe to Puerto Rico, it turned a
landscape that was achingly lovely into one that was painfully
bleak. In the case of St. Croix, where a large bomb could scarcely
have done more damage, the looting and disorder that followed were
as terrifying as the wicked winds. And now, as the high season
approaches, those who love the islands and hope to return are left
wondering: How much paradise was lost?

    An army of insurance adjusters is still taking count, but most
agree the damage figure will top $2 billion and could be twice
that. Roaring from St. John to Puerto Rico, the hurricane stripped
the voluptuous hills of every trace of green; it sent rooftops
cartwheeling down the mountainsides and busted power lines and
telephone poles, leaving the hillsides silent and dark. Given all
this havoc, returning visitors these days will be amazed to see how
quickly, riotously, the vegetation is growing back and how mightily
residents have worked to clean up the mess.

    But repairing the physical destruction is only the beginning;
next comes the damage control. Dec. 15 marks the start of the high
tourist season, and if tourists do not come back, neither will the
islands. More than 10 million visitors came last year, leaving
behind $7.3 billion. After Hugo, cancellations poured in, even for
destinations not touched by the storm. "Part of our problem is
fighting people's terrible knowledge of geography," says John Bell,
executive vice president of the Caribbean Hotel Association. "There
were groups dropping out of trips to Aruba and Barbados, which were
hundreds of miles from Hugo's path." So even as an army of workers
moved in, a phalanx of hoteliers and government officials set out
to persuade the travel industry that there would be no trouble in
paradise this winter.

    On the islands that felt the storm's full force, the recovery
is testimony to luck, resilience and private initiative. Among the
few places with electric generators and food supplies, many hotels
offered meals, showers and beds to the homeless and to relief
workers who had come to help. Four Seasons Hotels sent 27 tons of
food, medicine, clothing and chain saws to Nevis, where its new
property is still under construction. Cruise ships in St. Thomas
ferried stranded tourists out and supplies in. Despite about $10
million in damage, the luxury Virgin Grand resort on St. John was
turned into a rescue center by general manager Jim St. John. In all
he served about 15,000 meals, provided showers and transformed
$595-a-night rooms into a health clinic that has treated more than
1,000 people.

    Searching through the debris for blessings in disguise, hotel
owners note that the disaster could have happened in high season
rather than before it. In addition, the tragedy may help inspire
local governments to repair the infrastructure properly, and then
some. "Hugo has done for St. Thomas what nothing else could," says
Hotel Association president Nick Pourzal. "Now they are planting,
landscaping, spending the money to line the boulevards with
bougainvillea. I've been trying to get this done for 15 years."

    The sprucing up comes not a moment too soon. The resorts have
been losing business to the cruise lines, which account for some
60% of the traffic to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tourists with
limited time or money to spend are choosing ships over land-based
resorts as a better value. "The cruise business is just killing the
island resorts," says Jim Cammisa, a Miami-based travel consultant.
"Like it or not, Americans are not adventurous travelers. The
cruise offers clean accommodations, good food and consistency."

    So hotels have taken advantage of the storm, the insurance
money and the low season to hasten renovations. By the end of
October, most hotels on St. Thomas and St. John were ready for
visitors. While the government boosted its advertising budget 54%,
hoteliers even offered guests a money-back guarantee. "Everyone who
comes down now is a town crier," says Tom Bennett of the St.
Thomas-St. John Hotel Association. "We want them to go back and say
how pleased they were."

    But were they?

    The first sight upon landing in St. Thomas is half a DC-3,
broken like a baguette and tossed off to the side of the runway.
Piles of debris remain lumped by the roadside in many places, but
most streets are clear. This does not mean that traffic is exactly
flowing, since stoplights are still broken. Most places now have
electricity, but few have television, and the phones can be
temperamental. But for the tens of thousands of tourists who tumble
out of the cruise ships into Charlotte Amalie each week, the
effects of the storm are almost hidden. Most of the jewelry shops
along Main Street have reopened, to beguile passengers with special
one-time-only sales that never end. Everywhere there are sounds of
rebuilding. At the island's largest hotel, Frenchman's Reef, the
hammering begins at 7:30 a.m., and the wind smells of hot tar.
Guests by the pool don't seem to mind, but then many are insurance
adjusters, with a special interest in heavy equipment.

    Puerto Rico was equally hard hit, particularly on the islands
of Culebra and Vieques. And yet, despite $1.3 billion in damage,
"you can't even tell there was a hurricane here," beams tourist
Emma Meadows of Richwood, W. Va. Shops and restaurants are open,
highways are clear, and only 400 of the island's 8,500 rooms are
still out of service. The conference rooms and lobby of the
570-room Condado Plaza have new windows, carpeting, light fixtures
and furniture. Tree surgeons at the El San Juan are nursing the
trademark poolside banyan tree back to life; the hotel even gained
an extra 10 ft. of beach.

    Nature, however, may not repair so quickly. Tourists venturing
east toward El Yunque, the only tropical rain forest in the U.S.
National Forest System, will see the destruction firsthand. The
40-ft. leafy cathedral that vaulted over the roads is now open to
the sun, and once lush reaches of forest are bare, broken and
brown. In the hardest-hit areas, 60% of the hardwood trees are
gone, including huge mahoganies, and many of the rare Puerto Rican
parrots have disappeared.

    Some islands fared better in part by being prepared. On British
Tortola the storm damaged about one-third of the homes, but power
was back in many places by week's end. Reason: two years ago, the
island began burying utility cables underground, where they would
be less vulnerable in a bad storm. Telephone and electricity crews
were already at work while the winds were still blowing at 60
m.p.h.; within the week most roads were clear.

    It would have taken more than luck and preparation, however,
to save St. Croix. The island suffered a cruel beating during the
storm and in the days that followed. Like Montserrat, it felt the
full force of 220-m.p.h. winds, which wiped out 9 out of 10 homes.
Unlike Montserrat, it went on to be battered by national coverage
of the looting and gunfire, of terrified tourists begging to
escape. "It never dawned on me that there'd be looting," says
Father Thomas O'Connor, whose parish, St. Patrick's, is in the
heart of ransacked Frederiksted. The white-haired, blunt-spoken
priest speculates on what it all means. "I think St. Croix, because
of its beauty, will always attract tourists. But it better solve
its own internal problems first. The schools, the hospitals, the
infrastructure, the very fabric of the society has eroded. When St.
Croix gets its house in order, people should come back."

    Residents have suffered terribly since the storm -- and so has
the island's image. Only last week did the last of the 1,100
military police sent down by President Bush withdraw, replaced by
a 150-man unit of the Washington National Guard. Governor Alexander
Farrelly, who after two months had yet to spend a night on the
ravaged island, defends the move. "If we're talking about getting
back on the tourist track," he says, "it doesn't become us to have
an image of St. Croix as an island inhabited by soldiers."

    Safe or not, St. Croix will simply not be ready for most
tourists this winter. Power and phone service will not be restored
until January at the earliest, and less than half of the 1,755
hotel rooms are usable. Many shops in Christiansted are still
boarded, if there is anything left to board. "I want to see the
tourists come back as much as anyone," says developer Jack
Caldwell, "but to bring them down this winter would do more harm
than good."

    That said, the adventurous traveler, forewarned and content to
be inconvenienced, will find plenty to see. Divers report a whole
new underwater landscape to be explored. "The American public is
not wimpish," says Leona Bryant, the government's director of
tourism. "They're accustomed to disaster and adventure. You find
people coming to gawk." Or if not to gawk, perhaps to listen and
learn. "There's a camaraderie among people now," says Margery
Boulanger, headmaster of St. Croix Country Day School, where the
damage gave a whole new meaning to the notion of the open
classroom. "Standing in line together, filling out forms, waiting
for ice. I'd be surprised if tourists had a bad experience because
of the hurricane."

    A fair number of businessmen, at least, are willling to bet
that she's right. Ritz-Carlton is proceeding with plans for a $140
million hotel on St. Croix scheduled to open in late 1992. Great
Pond Bay Resorts just won approval for a $250 million project with
350 hotel rooms and 600 condos. If the islands all do struggle
back, it may be because in the end Hugo could not destroy what most
people come to the Caribbean to find. It could not make the sea
less bright or the sun less clear, or bestir the starfish or break
the spirits of the islands' hosts. The present flurry of activity
may be at odds with the placid island tempo, but it reflects that
most precious tourist commodity: the desire to please.