Aug. 23, 2001 – Tropical Storm Dean left a fair degree of inconvenience in its wake locally as it moved northwestward into oblivion Thursday, but no major damage.
For the most part, St. Croix wasn't much worse for the wear. Minor flooding was reported around the island, particularly in Estates William's Delight and Mon Bijou, where yards and roads were awash in standing water.
There were intermittent power and telephone outages across the island. According to the Water and Power Authority, Dean knocked down a power line coming from Feeder 4, but it was repaired in about an hour. Feeders 9 and 10 also were knocked out, and Feeder 1 suffered a partial outage.
Innovative Telephone issued a release Thursday reporting damage to a power source due to a power surge in the Mon Bijou office Wednesday evening. Phones were out in Mon Bijou, Frederiksted, Mount Pleasant and the Henry E. Rohlsen Airport from about 9 p.m. Wednesday until crews restored service around 3 a.m. Thursday, it said.
On St. John, Ira Wade, deputy Public Works commissioner, said that the worst problem reported was a wash on Bordeaux Road at the intersection of Route 107. There already had been deep ruts that made the section of road barely passable in a car, he said, but the rains made the road usable only by four-wheel-drive vehicles. The debris, mostly mud and sand, ran into Route 107, he said.
Wade advised drivers to use Gerda Marsh Estate Road, which runs past Savers Store and the V.I. Agriculture Department, as an alternative route to reach homes on Bordeaux Road.
Mud also ran onto portions of Route 107 at Calabash Boom and Chicago Hill. "I call these the flash points. Every time it rains, the mud flows," Wade said. He said rocks tumbled down the hillsides onto Centerline Road between King Hill Road and Coral Bay — again a common occurrence when there is heavy rain.
Kathy Demar, who owns Vacation Homes, said she had to move one set of guests out of a North Shore villa because it had no power. "No power means no water, and people can't deal with that," she said.
V.I. National Park Supt. John King said the storm caused a few trees to lose limbs. The worst problem was along the Reef Bay Trail, he said, but a contractor was on the job Thursday morning clearing the popular hiking trail.
On St. Thomas, Wireless World customers experienced a few problems Thursday. According to a company spokesman, lightening strikes at the top of Crown Mountain — which had not been visible because of the dense cloud cover Wednesday — caused some equipment failure, but it was quickly repaired.
Boulders that had tumbled down hillsides remained on roads around the island, one near a set of trash bins on the North Side.
From both St. John and St. Thomas came reports of one of the common unpleasant aftermaths of a rainstorm: invasions of winged termites.
At 11 a.m. Thursday, what little was left of Dean was 85 miles northeast of Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Reports from an Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft indicated that Dean no longer had a closed wind circulation and that sustained winds had dwindled to 35 mph.
The Virgin Islands forecast calls for partly sunny but hazy skies Friday with a 20 percent chance of showers. Friday night is expected to be cloudy, Saturday partly sunny, Saturday night partly cloudy, and Sunday variably cloudy. Scattered showers are forecast through the weekend. According to the marine forecast, another tropical wave is projected to move north-northwest into the Eastern Caribbean Sunday night and could pass across the local area Monday or Monday night.
