Thanks Irene :-(

The beautiful arch that Geoff had been working on - ruined.

Trees are still standing, but not the stove...

Goodbye eggplant bushes...

We made it through Irene safe and sound. Unfortunately, our plants didnt.

It really was a surreal 24 hours - the storm kicked in around 6pm on Sunday night (St. Croix was on lockdown curfew as of 6pm), and I was even on skype with mum at the time... by about 8pm, the winds had picked up so much that we had to bring everything inside - our BBQ, motorbike parts, furniture etc. Water was coming through our shutters, so we had to pull all the computer parts away from the window area.

The generator was going non-stop until 2am, when it died on us, and after several attempts at fixing it, Geoff wasnt able to so gave up and went back to sleep.

The next morning, the skies had cleared but the wind was still really strong. I took the day off but Geoff went to work - the roads were very quiet... as we didnt have running water, I "showered" in our pool, where I even washed my hair.

After an announcement was made on the radio that water and ice supplies were running really low, I made a beeline to the grocery store to pick up a few gallons of water.. there was only about 12 left on the shelves. As for ice, it was already all sold out. Generators - same deal.

After about 28hours with no power or water, we finally got it back - and were lucky that only our dairy in the fridge had gone bad by that stage.

Its kind of worrying to think what may have happened if the storm had've been bigger. For an island that has lived through Hugo, with 6 -12 months no power, no fresh food, months of looting and violence as a consequence of such a big hurricane, it really surprised us to see that St. Croix was not more prepared. Sure, Irene was nothing compared to Hugo, but it could've been, and 12 hours after it hit, there was barely any drinking water left available? We've learned our lesson with not relying on a generator or doing a grocery shop a day before a big storm, but hopefully St. Croix will learn theirs too.