Letter to an old friend

Going back to your questions about Hurricane Marilyn, US Virgin Islands, 1995.  The devastation was overwhelming.  It was everywhere, changing place to place merely in degree.  Some neighborhoods looked as if a bomb had gone off, leveling everything for acres.  I remember going around, first on foot and then by car, simply exploring the new world of destruction we lived in.  Taking it all in, but in hindsight, emotionally shut down.  Quite literally, it was stunning.   

 

How did we start the clean up?  How did we do it?  Good questions.  Thinking about it now I realize there's a novel length story to tell.  The physical destruction and the clean up was paralleled by an emotional evolution.  But for now, I'll say the physical clean up began slowly.  One thing at a time.  Pick up a piece of debris and begin a pile. 

 

I remember how for days after the storm, the waters of the Lagoon smelled of diesel from leaking fuel tanks in sunken boats.  There was a thick sheen across the Lagoon.  The smell made some people sick.  You saw in the video how broken up our docks were, with boats from our fleet and boats that had broken away from neighboring docks piled on or sunken next to our docks.  Along with that mess there was a mat of floating and half sunken debris of all sorts.  I recall being on the dock with Gary, the business owner Tommy, and one or two others, looking at it all and realizing that we had to start somewhere.  As always, I had Tevas on my feet.  A moment of resolution settled over me.  I stepped down into the oily knee-deep water in the front of the shop and started pulling out debris.  Branches, parts of boats, bits of lumber, unidentifiable junk.  It seemed like my actions startled those around me.  They were amazed that I would do what I was doing.  But as debris piled up on the dock they jumped in and began carrying it away.  No one said anything, but it was as if a tipping point had been reached - the realization that no one was going to come clean this up for us.  We simply had to jump in and begin. Anywhere.  One thing at a time.  Then everywhere.