By the time Hurricane Irma made its much anticipated landfall on the coast of Florida, it was a weak category 3 hurricane. By the time it reached the city of Tampa Bay it was a category one, a shadow of its former self. Rewind one week and Irma is a category five with winds double most of what hit Florida, around 180 mph. These are winds of a medium sized tornado, only in the hurricane they last much longer. On Barbuda, the first island that Irma hit before making landfall in Florida, ninety-five percent of buildings were utterly destroyed. The island lost contact to the outside world for hours. The island’s only endemic bird has probably gone extinct. Irma then struck the Virgin Islands a few days later and left a similar wake of destruction as seen in Barbuda. The picturesque lush mountains were completely stripped bare of leaves, leaving them totally brown, like something that could be seen in a Northeastern winter. Power was lost to many of the islands completely, causing them to become isolated. On St Thomas, twelve inches of rain fell, causing mudslides on the mountains. There was up to a twelve foot storm surge. Afterward, no one had access to any new supplies and people had no access to anyone for days afterward. People were panicked and armed themselves for protection from thieves and looters. It was in this situation when hurricane Maria was approaching. In less than two days, it strengthened from a tropical storm to a category five hurricane, bearing down on many of the same islands that were just hit by Irma. These include both the Virgin Islands and Barbuda. Maria was not much smaller than Irma and hit these same islands. It roared through and further destroyed the already destroyed islands. After both storms, some places on these islands will not receive power for six months or maybe up to a year. Islands that rely on tourism for business, will not have an inflow of money for the rebuilding because nobody will want to visit the destroyed islands. Now on Barbuda, there is not a single person left. This is the first time in over 200 years, when the Europeans first settled the island in the early 1700s.

The 2017 Hurricane season has been very active with three major category four hurricanes to strike land and thirteen named storms. This is an incredible fact given that we are only halfway through the hurricane season, at its peak in September.