A decision many people are considering, to evacuate or not to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Irma. So how does someone who just prevailed through the storm in the British Virgin Islands think in hindsight?
We found out.
In the cluster of British Virgin Islands, Tortola, the largest of the bunch is now reeling from Irma’s wrath.
“I’m safe, I think we’re pretty much through it,” Janet Smith said over the phone from Tortola. She lives in Jacksonville and is there on business. Her son lives in Palm Beach County and her daughter in Tampa.
So what would she do differently?
“Let me put it this way. My kids bought me a ticket to come home Sunday and I opted not to leave,” she said.
“If I had known a Category 5 storm was coming. I would leave. It’s not fun.”
The tropical winds began to pick up around midnight, she says. By day break, she shot videos of the impending storm on her cell phone.
“You could hear the wind whistling in the trees,” she said.
She’s staying at a place called Fort Burt, which is now a hotel, originally a Dutch fortress. Around noon, it was shaking.
They were in the eye wall.
“It’s a lot of wind. It’s unsettling. But that half hour-185 mile per hour wind- is nothing to laugh about. You don’t want to go through that,” she said.
And then in the eye for about a half hour.
“It got very, very quiet,” she said. “And then it got windy again. But not nearly as windy as it was when we were first in the eye wall.”
Their roof damaged and internet still down, so she couldn’t sent any aftermath photos.
But she’s safe. And kept her family at ease.
“I was blessed. I didn’t lose communication with my kids,” she said.
She said the items she was especially thankful she had with her in preparation: batteries and a car charger for her cell phone.
