ST. CROIX — The rain fell so hard and so quickly during Friday’s thunderstorm that roads and parking lots immediately flooded, creating havoc for motorists and businesses during power outages on St. Croix and St. Thomas.
First responders rescued motorists caught in flash floods on St. Croix that quickly turned roads into rivers, while some businesses got flooded as rainwater entered their doors during an island-wide power outage.
A couple stores and an office in the Sunny Isle Shopping Center were still mopping up Sunday after flood waters flowed inside Friday night. The torrential rains quickly pooled on the roads, making some areas impossible to pass.
Motorists driving eastbound along the Melvin H. Evans Highway encountered raging waters at the intersection of The Home Depot, forcing them to evacuate their vehicles.
“We had to do some rescues yesterday, but nothing life threatening,” Daryl Jaschen, Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency director, said Saturday, adding that flood waters also damaged a lot of vehicles. “Now no matter how good your drainage is, once you have saturation that water’s gonna have to go somewhere. If it can’t go somewhere, it’s gonna back up and pool.”
Philippa Smith-Tyler, a voice and piano instructor from Washington, D.C. who has lived on St. Croix five years, said she got trapped in her sport utility vehicle while attempting to drive through a flooded section of the road behind Office Max leading to her apartment at Sunny Isle Housing. She said the water was flowing so much she couldn’t open her door to escape, adding that her vehicle lost power so she couldn’t roll down her electric window.
“I was terrified,” Smith-Tyler said. “I was not only sitting in a flash flood in my car, but the water was coming in the bottom of my car.”
After calling 911 and requesting assistance, Smith-Tyler said she was shocked to hear from the dispatcher that there were no first responders available.
“I said, ‘I am panicking; I’m sitting inside a car that is being flooded,’” she said. “I felt like I was going to drown 10 feet away from my apartment building.”
Smith-Tyler said two men who live in her apartment building saw she was trapped in her vehicle so they both called 911 to request assistance. She said one of the men, Juan Medina, attempted to rescue her but the flowing water knocked him down. She said her other neighbor, Angel Saldana, made about five calls to 911, pleading to the operator to send help.
“I want to give these gentlemen credit because they really came through for me,” she said.
Smith-Tyler said she got rescued by firefighters who told her they were from the fire station in Estate Richmond. She said they used their fire truck to tow her vehicle out of the flood waters.
“It worked out that I am safe and sound and dry, so I am thankful for that,” she said. “I’d like this to be a warning to those people who think that it won’t happen to them because it can happen any place and especially if you ignore the warning.”
Jaschen said Friday evening was a “rough time” for The Big Island. He said 911 operators were busy taking calls, noting VIFEMS responded.
“Everybody seemed to be getting through the night OK,” he said, adding that there were good communications between all the agencies.
Chief Robert Bryan, VIFEMS EMS chief, said firefighters and EMS personnel were prepared to get rescue calls Friday night on St. Croix after receiving an alert from VITEMA about the potential for flash floods that were accompanied by an island-wide power outage.
“There were several calls, only two specifically for rescues from us,” Bryan said, noting VIFEMS also responded to a fallen power line in addition to about three EMS calls unrelated to the weather.
St. Croix Rescue Squad helped first responders from Fire and Emergency Medical Services rescue motorists during the storm, Bryan said. He said about seven vehicles encountered the flooded highway near The Home Depot.
“Most of those people self-rescued,” he said.
Jason Henry, St. Croix Rescue field operations commander, served as the incident commander Friday evening. He shared in a text that St. Croix Rescue was initially called to assist with a woman trapped in her car on the East End before receiving a 911 dispatch indicating that there were several motorists trapped in their vehicles on Melvin H. Evans Highway near The Home Depot. After the first two rescue units arrived at the highway, Henry noted that a rapid assessment identified 12 passengers and five vehicles, including a taxi van.
“Rescue members assisted getting the individuals to safety and also used our vehicles to block the road to prevent anyone else from traveling on the road,” Henry texted, adding that St. Croix Rescue members rescued a woman and two children from a vehicle near the oil refinery in addition to assisting a stranded motorist near HH Tire and Battery.
While first responders were out rescuing motorists from flooded roads, stormwater flowed into some businesses.
“We just had a lot of water come in from the back of the store,” Yahmillia John, manager of Super Dollar at Five Corners, said, adding that the water flowed down a hill and flooded about half of the store. “We took some losses on some of the merchandise that was on the floor.”
The VITEMA director said while most of the rain hit St. Croix, there was some on St. Thomas and St. John. He said, however, there were not any significant issues in the St. Thomas-St. John District because of the rain beyond power outages and debris flowing into the roads that had to be cleared by the Department of Public Works.
“The biggest impact was The Village last night on St. Thomas,” he said Saturday, adding that the area got flooded.
St. Thomas/Water Island Administrator Avery Lewis said St. Thomas experienced flooding in some of the low-lying areas that are known to flood during heavy rains.
“I would say for the most part in certain areas the drainage does work, but it was just a voluminous amount of water, just extra water and it took a little more time than usual to drain,” he said.
Lewis said he hadn’t heard of any businesses impacted by flooding but noted all the public schools on St. Thomas were inspected to ensure they would be ready to receive students today. He said crews from the Department of Public Works were out on the roads Saturday removing debris, adding that they were still at it today.
“Those guys and girls are working diligently to make sure our roads are passable, and everything goes back to normal, a normal state,” he said.
An island-wide power outage occurred on St. Croix at about 4:44 p.m. Friday due to a transformer that tripped, Shanell Petersen, WAPA spokesperson, said. She said WAPA brought additional generation units online and had a line crew go out to identify one issue brought on by the weather that was affecting a few other feeders. She said power was restored to all feeders at about 11:50 p.m. Friday.
There were also power outages Friday night on St. Thomas, Petersen said. She said the thunderstorm and flash flooding delayed the pace of power restoration.
After restoring power Friday night on St. Croix and St. Thomas, Petersen said WAPA line crews were out Saturday on both islands to resolve some pocket outages.
When asked what lessons were learned from steps that were not taken before Friday’s storm that could be done in the future, Jaschen spoke of the possibility of working with the Virgin Islands Police Department to close roads that are known to flood during heavy rains. He said, however, motorists need to be able to traverse the island, pointing out ongoing road construction. He said closing roads could also negatively affect businesses by limiting access.
“If we do see something in flooding potentially, we could close off one or two lanes but yesterday was extraordinary,” he said Saturday.
Bryan supported the idea of blocking off flood-prone roads as a precautionary measure before major storms.
“We could have saved a lot more headaches if we could have closed certain roads,” he said.
Jaschen said VITEMA worked closely with the National Weather Service and publicly made announcements. VITEMA announced a flash flood watch on its Facebook page Friday that remained in effect until 6 p.m. Sunday. VITEMA issued an update via Alert VI at 5:33 p.m. Friday that a flash flood warning had been issued.
“The No. 1 thing is to heed the warnings and advisories that come out and take those seriously,” he said. “If you have watches that are coming out, plan your day, watch the weather situation, be prepared to not go to those places. The best thing we can do is sign up for Alert VI. We send the messaging out as soon as we can for the community.”
