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Battered St. Martin Residents Fight To Survive, Struggle To Decide Whether To Remain

Jim Wyss
/
Miami Herald
Alex Duranson, right, and son Jeffery say they plan to rebuild their bar and restaurant on St. Martin, after Hurricane Irma destroyed the shared French and Dutch island

ST. MARTIN -- Ten days after Hurricane Irma turned St. Martin into a jigsaw of ripped metal and shattered wood, residents were still struggling with an existential question: Should they cling to an island that can barely support life or start over elsewhere?

Irma hit the shared Dutch and French Caribbean island as a Category 5 hurricane with winds in excess of 200 miles an hour, turning the picturesque tourist haven into a sweltering trash heap without power, water or communications. What the hurricane didn’t steal, looters often did.

On Friday night, Yvanna and Theodore DeWeever — a young married couple — had collapsed onto the deck chairs of Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas that has been running missions of mercy, helping evacuate people from hard-hit Caribbean islands to Puerto Rico.

Read more at our news partner, the Miami Herald.

Jim Wyss is the South America bureau chief for The Miami Herald. He has a master of science degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor of arts degree from American University in journalism and Spanish. He lives in Bogota, Colombia.
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