Territory’s ports reopen after Earl
Published: September 1, 2010
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Two sailboats lie grounded on rocks on Water Island, and a broken tree lies on the Crown Bay cruise ship dock.
All the territory’s airports and all but one of the seaports reopened Tuesday following the departure of Hurricane Earl.
At 3 p.m. Tuesday, the U.S. Coast Guard set the territory’s ports to Port Condition X-RAY, which means that a storm is coming but the port can be open to all activity. Tropical Storm Fiona is expected to pass about 120 miles north of the territory today.
The one exception was Limetree Bay on St. Croix, which was still at Port Condition ZULU, which means it is closed to all activity. Limetree Bay is used by HOVENSA and also houses the container port for St. Croix.
HOVENSA spokesman Alex Moorhead said that one of the port’s navigational aids went missing after Hurricane Earl passed through the area.
“It was found in the water this afternoon, and they’re working on getting it restored,” Moorhead said.
V.I. Port Authority spokeswoman Monifa Marrero said Rohlsen Airport opened at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, and King Airport opened at 11:30 a.m.
She said the St. Croix seaports — with the exception of Limetree Bay — opened at 3:30 p.m., and the St. Thomas and St. John seaports opened at 4:05 p.m.
However, the St. Thomas-St. John ferries could not start running when the ports opened because they were blocked in by barges and other boats in The Creek, a safe harbor for boats on St. John.
“Even though they opened the port, we were still stuck in The Creek, so we arranged for Caribbean Performance to shepherd passengers,” Varlack Ventures General Manager Delrise Varlack said.
The smaller boats were able to make the 4 p.m., 6 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. runs from Cruz Bay, St. John, to Red Hook, St. Thomas, and the 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. runs from Red Hook to Cruz Bay.
Varlack said because of the 11 p.m. curfew put in place by the government, the last run was at 10 p.m., so the ferry crews would have enough time to get home.
She said the two ferry franchisees — Transportation Service of St. John and Varlack Ventures — would work to get their boats out of The Creek in time to begin the normal ferry schedule today. Varlack said the first run of the day is 5:30 a.m. from Red Hook.
Even though the seaports have been reopened, the cruise lines have suspended calls to St. Thomas until Saturday.
West Indian Co. President Ed Thomas said the Carnival Dream, Norwegian Epic, and Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas and the Freedom of the Seas have all been rerouted and are doing their western Caribbean route instead of the eastern Caribbean route.
“All traffic was basically cancelled coming from the U.S. mainland,” Thomas said.
The Carnival Victory simply adjusted its scheduled stops and moved St. Thomas to the last port call. The ship will arrive Saturday.
“Next week we should be back to normal schedule,” Thomas said.
