Author and long-term St John home owner, Homer Hickam, has a great way of helping us remember just how quickly our now brown landscape can rebound -- in a year's time brown hillsides turn into to lush, lush green. His example, while not St John, is similar to our environmental conditions. We will let his words and pictures speak for themselves:
I sort of went through this in 1998 when the island of Isla de Guanaja [in the Caribbean] was hit by Mitch, similar in size as Irma. Here are before and after photos, a year between. My friends standing in same spot with exactly one year between photos. Islands do recover (left photo right after Hurricane Mitch and the photo on the left just one year later:
Guanaja hurricane mitch
Guanaja hurricane mitch 1 yr later
As we brace for Hurricane Maria and make every effort to stay safe, know that the future can and will be bright and the island green again as shown in the above photos!