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H:\!DOCS\MSOFFICE\WINWORD\TEMPLATE\NORMAL.DOT LETTERS FROM THE EDGE Charles V. Balch Charles V. Balch Cruzan Breeze Written by the Cruzan Possé Completely Unofficial St. Croix News Saturday, Noon, September 23 Doing better than yesterday! Keep helping each other. Stay positive. Eat. --- Blatant Editorial --- The current situation is tough on everyone. Some more than others. Stress is showing. Tense people act differently; the person you’re interacting with feels at least as much tension as you. Even though your needs are intense, be forgiving of behavior lapses, else arguments escalate rapidly. Good things escalate rapidly as well. My number of hugs received a day is way up. Everyone prefers being very friendly and helpful. Keep the focus on the hugs. Our community bonds are already stronger for this experience. --- Current Weather --- Welcome to the first day of Fall. Today night and day are the length (you can do the math). Nights are getting longer. The weather will be unsettled for the next couple of days. We are about to encounter a large, slow moving area of storms and thundershowers. Expect rain. Get your clothes in. There is a small formation off the West coast of Africa (we heard coordinates of 15 34. STX is at 17.4 64. The satellite photo in the Daily News was comforting. If you have cable, the weather channel is back. --- We heard --- The Daily News says government estimates 3 billion dollars in damages which will probably rise. This figure is twice Hugo’s. The lines at disaster relief are now reasonable; a brief wait and you’re done. ‘ the STX centers are closed for today only so as to restock. Our personal, drive-by observation found distribution center lines were shorter than lines to vote. The lines were just as calm and orderly. But we were not standing in them. Ice is here, there and everywhere! There are stories of items going out the backdoor to relief workers instead of out the front door to persons in line. We hope, if true, the recipients were as needy as the persons in line being denied or delayed. If not, this is the worst form of looting and should be treated as such. Distribution is still a problem on both islands. Banks are severely limiting the cash ($250 which won’t buy much) they disburse and the hours they are open. While understandable, we hope this will end soon. Oh for an automatic teller. Cargo was stopped briefly because US customs was not open. Customs is back at the Tropical shipping office. VITEMA has contractors covering roofs for free. They are covering neighborhood by neighborhood. You can’t sign up at a central location anymore. Someone who lives at the house must be present to authorize the repair (renters OK but neighbors are not). This seems a good solution to the tarp distribution problem. We have not heard that there were any problems but be careful what you sign from adjusters and insurance companies. --- How ting? --- STT has major problems: 90+% devastation; Electrical power essentially gone; 5% phone service with no long distance. The airport will be closed at least another 10 days. Flights can land but there is no terminal space for normal operations. Schools are closed indefinitely. The hospital is 60% damaged but a field hospital is open. Recent eyewitness reports from STX give the impression that things have settled somewhat. To discourage looting, store owners are protecting their property around the clock with machine guns. Curfew is 6 to 8 and enforced. Perhaps understandably, the government and press are not mentioning organized looting. The government is responding. The troops keep rolling in, there is a major presence from the VI Police, US Army, Federal Marshals, National Guard, FBI, Forest Service, Corp. of Engineers, Charleston Police Department and the Border Patrol. We’re talking road blocks and roving patrols. I may have missed a group, it sounds like we’ll be seeing the Ninja Turtles and Rescue Rangers soon. All are very welcome. On STX things are very good (considering). We guess about 40% destruction. Curfew is 8 PM to 6 AM and even that may be a bit much. People are pretty much keeping to it. Reported high theft rates in Frederiksted are not unusual. We have 35% power and the rest being restored very fast. Our airport is open. Public schools may open in 10 days (I’m not just leaving that 10 there folks, they keep saying that number). Government acknowledges STX is practically ready for tourism and will provide national advertising saying such. There aren’t many islands left in the Caribbean that can handle tourism so we’ll get most everyone else's business. We hate to benefit from other’s losses but can use the economic shot in the arm. UVI plans to open Oct 9 on both campuses. It’s typical of UVI to plan on opening on a holiday (Columbus day is the second Monday of October). National weather forecasters are not welcome here. We hear that Marilyn is now a retroactive category three; far from the category one we were told to expect. We all know that stated locations were way off. Hess clocked winds at 157 before their meter broke. (Hugo broke the meter at 210). Why do these things always break the meter? Today’s Avis reports on page 2 that NOAA officials showed up found that everyone was satisfied with the reporting. They did not talk to anyone that I know (like the Weather Guy for WOSO 1030 AM out of Puerto Rico). Their fact finding is as good as their Marilyn reports. Take your lumps guys. By the way, weather channel 3 was consistently very late (one to two hours) in their updates. There is nothing so frustrating as hearing a five hour old report while knowing that it was updated hours before. Also, can’t you get it through your heads that these things ALWAYS go North? Regardless of what your models say, at least mention the possibility. Lots of raw sewage was released, stay out of the ocean. Swimming is banned. Sort your debris. Metal, organics and household goods are handled differently. Don’t touch wires. Don’t allow mosquitoes to breed. --- Hall of Fame --- All a we. The STX community is hanging together and responding heroically. Governor Roy you’re doing an incredible job. Getting major federal funds: a million here, six million there, it adds up. We here the whole package is close to a cool billion. Vic, our congressman, was a major source of information for stateside friends and relatives. Senators are finally justifying those major staffs. We’re going to ignore all those newspaper articles from now on (at least a couple of months). The ice cream folks at five corners who gave it all a way. The folks at Hess are getting very mixed reviews. Apparently many promises are made and broken. Gotta love those HAM radio operators. They provided communication when no one else could. Trey Parnell. --- Talk about de money --- Remember we are not official but the following has been historically true. It will probably be close. There are federal funds for your personal needs. The government would rather loan you money than give a grant. FEMA provides grants and SBA provides loans at 4%. Combinations of loans and grants are common. For most if not all FEMA grants you must be declined a loan by the SBA. If you have a source of income, you will probably qualify for loans. Emergency rent grants to $2,200 were recently offered in California; expect a number close to that. Emergency rent is available if you can’t live where you were living before the storm. Historically up to $10,000 was provided to replace essential personal goods such as clothing, kitchen items, furniture, etc. TVs or fancy stereos not considered essential. Essential medical items (eye glasses, dentures, etc) are covered with vouchers and almost no questions asked. Your house or business is also probably covered up to large amounts of money. When filling out the forms, think about loss of income. Be honest -- this is not Christmas. Prepare by collecting documentation like receipts, pay stubs, IRS forms. Again the Teleregister number is (800) 462-9029. It’s supposed to take about 15-20 minutes. Be sure that you’ll get a visit from an adjuster to verify your claim. --- Who dat mon? --- FEMA & SBA are now using Teleregister to process forms. The (800) 462-9029 number is supposed to be active but we have had no luck with it (stateside friends have gotten through). Isle 95 is doing a great job focusing on STX. More news! Thanks for complete weather reports. Keep doing interviews with public officials. Thanks! Lucky 13 (AM 1340) is the official disaster coverage station. The focus is on STT as it should be. Post Office is now bringing in first class mail. Red Cross is good for food, shelter and messages to the outside world. They are focusing on STT. VITELCO is doing a great job. Rumor has it that 800 numbers don’t work. Maybe they don’t know how to bill for them. Cellular systems are pretty much completely back. It helps to be independent of telephone poles. ATT is offering free call to anywhere in the world - if you get to one of their offices. Good for you ATT. Call VITEMA at 773-2244 for central assistance. They coordinate everything and will remove roadside debris. --- Irie Ideas --- DPNR requests Naval chain be lain down for the marine community. Create a boat dump site (no deeper than 60 feet) that will become a dive attraction.. Getting the word out to national media that STX is alive, well and ready for your tourist dollar. Let’s use the more durable concrete telephone poles as we rebuild. FEMA would probably help pay for them. --- Who de Cruzan Possé dem? --- With Gilligan (Kevin Moran), the skipper too, a movie star (Marilyn), the Professor (Charles Balch) and Mary Ann (Eileen Foran). Technical Credits: Victoria Prehn. We are not official in any way. We are dug into a concrete bunker on the East end of STX. Our number is 773-9437. We’re doing this because we think it is a good way to help the community. Many people do not have time to monitor all the news. We hope the Breeze answers your pressing questions. Our feedback has been very good. --- Breeze Info --- Now up almost two pages! We do our best to be accurate but the facts are changing by the hour. Call for corrections. There is a fax distribution list. To speed things up, we do not include graphics on faxes. You can call us at the above number to be included on the fax list. Our resources limit us to about 100 copies and 20 faxes twice a day. Sometime in the next couple of days (maybe today) we will cut back to once a day. We guess that about 1,500 people a day are reading us. This is not copyrighted. Feel free to copy and redistribute. Love to all! Normal Heading 1 Heading 2 Heading 3 Heading 4 Heading 5 Heading 6 Default Paragraph Font Header Footnote Text List Table Footnote Reference Bibliography Example Quote Question Answer wfxRecipient wfxFaxNum Heading UVZc0 Telecom_Out Telecom_In Page_Heading wfxDate Title_Heading wfxTime wfxSubject Footer Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6F.DOC Charles V. Balch H:\!DOCS\BREEZE6F.DOCÿ@HP LaserJet 4/4M LPT1: HPPCL5E HP LaserJet 4/4M HP LaserJet 4/4M Symbol Palatino Book Antiqua Courier Courier New LETTERS FROM THE EDGE Charles V. Balch Charles V. Balch