NASA images show how Hurricane Irma wiped the color from lush, green islands
Not only did Hurricane Irma leave a trail of untold devastation, including dozens dead, across the Caribbean, the Category 5 storm also literally wiped away the natural beauty of several small islands.
Satellite photos released Monday by NASA showed how the storm turned what were previously tropical, green islands nearly completely brown. Though there are few cloud-free satellite images of the area so far, a NASA satellite captured natural images of the U.S. and British Virgin Islands before and after the storm.
Even from space, the effects of Irma are clearly visible.
U.S. Virgin Islands before and after Hurricane Irma.
As The New York Times and NPR have recently reported, Irma battered the Virgin Islands and Barbuda while still at Category 5 strength, demolishing countless homes and buildings. Left without power, running water, or cell service, the Caribbean islands face an uncertain recovery.
“It was a green island,” KJ Neilson, a resident of the U.S. Virgin Islands, told Boston.com. Neilson, who rode out the hurricane last week at his home in St. Thomas, added that the storm “drastically” changed the island’s landscape.
“Now there isn’t a piece of color,” he said Monday. “Everything is brown.”
British Virgin Islands before and after Hurricane Irma.
According to NASA Earth Observatory science writer Kathryn Hansen, there are a number a possible reasons for the widespread browning.
“Lush green tropical vegetation can be ripped away by a storm’s strong winds, leaving the satellite with a view of more bare ground,” she wrote Monday. “Also, salt spray whipped up by the hurricane can coat and desiccate leaves while they are still on the trees.”
NASA’s images also show the impact on Barbuda, which was hit directly by the storm’s eye wall, in contrast to the neighboring island of Antigua, which was spared from the full force of the storm.
Barbuda and Antigua before and after Hurricane Irma.
“Vegetation on Antigua appears relatively healthy and intact,” Hansen wrote. “With the storm’s center passing to the north, the island sustained less damage.
She also noted that Antigua’s airport had reopened and that electricity had been restored to most parts of the island, according to local reports. Meanwhile, roughly 60 percent of Barbuda’s population has reportedly been left homeless and nearly every building either damaged or demolished.
