ST. THOMAS, Virgin Islands (1 Sep 2004) -- Once the fringes of Hurricane Frances blew through the U.S. Virgin Islands on Tuesday, it appeared to have saved its fury for somewhere else. Even as the storm's center sat 140 miles north of St. Thomas, its winds blowing at Category 4 force, the most the Virgin Islands saw from Frances was the occasional thunderstorm accompanied by strong gusts of wind. It was nothing Virgin Islanders could not handle. "We haven't had any heavy winds. We haven't had any heavy rains. We haven't had any flooding," said Harold Baker, state director of the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency. Schools and government offices were scheduled to reopen today, flights were scheduled to resume in and out of King Airport and local businesses, many of which closed up shop early on Tuesday, are expected to be back up and running. And Frances will be gone. "It's going to move out and be north of Haiti by tomorrow afternoon," said Scott Stripling, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in San Juan. "By then, conditions may begin to improve." The National Weather Service is predicting only a 40 percent chance of rain this afternoon and into tonight. Seas, which experienced swells as high as 15 feet late Tuesday, are expected to die down to around 6 feet tonight. Frances came its closest to the U.S. Virgin Islands at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday, when the eye was 142 miles due north of St. Thomas. Even then, it did not pack much of a punch. At King Airport, only one-tenth of an inch of rain was reported as of late Tuesday afternoon, and the highest sustained winds recorded were at 32 knots. However, rainfall amounts and wind speed elsewhere on St. Thomas and St. John were likely higher, Stripling said. | | Gov. Charles Turnbull issued a statement Tuesday afternoon that said in part, "We are very grateful to Almighty God that this potentially dangerous storm has passed without any reported damage or incidents." While the Virgin Islands could safely call Hurricane Frances a near-miss, the Bahamas may not be so lucky. At the same time it lifted a tropical storm warning for St. Thomas, St. John and the British Virgin Islands, the National Weather Service posted a hurricane warning for the southeastern Bahamas on Tuesday afternoon. Frances' projected path places it near Turks and Caicos this afternoon. This morning, Frances was about 250 miles east-southeast of Grand Turk Island moving west-northwest about 15 mph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of about 140 mph. Even with the worst of Frances apparently gone, VITEMA remained on alert late Tuesday afternoon. "We need to maintain the vigilance and the precaution we were taking all along," Baker said. "Storms are unpredictable." SOURCE - Virgin Islands Daily News |
