{"id":10732,"date":"2017-12-29T08:25:53","date_gmt":"2017-12-29T12:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/?p=10732"},"modified":"2017-12-29T08:25:53","modified_gmt":"2017-12-29T12:25:53","slug":"three-months-after-a-hurricane-devastated-barbuda-and-everybody-left-little-is-back-to-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/antiguanewsroom.com\/three-months-after-a-hurricane-devastated-barbuda-and-everybody-left-little-is-back-to-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Three months after a hurricane devastated Barbuda and everybody left, little is back to normal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(LA Times)<\/p>

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Three months after hurricanes forced the evacuation of Barbuda, only 350 people \u2014 or less than 20% of the population \u2014 have returned to the tiny Caribbean island.<\/p>\n

Hurricane Irma struck on Sept. 6, littering the 62-square-mile island with mangled metal, shattered glass and crushed household goods. Most homes were damaged or destroyed.<\/p>

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Days later, with Hurricane Jose poised to strike a second blow, all 1,800 residents were evacuated to neighboring Antigua. That storm missed. But when\u00a0The Times visited<\/a>\u00a0a month later, the island was largely deserted.<\/p>

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In phone and email interviews this month, residents who have gone back said the pace of recovery there remains painfully slow.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like an out-of-body experience,\u201d said Gina Walker, who returned in October. \u201cYou wake up every morning and expect things to be back to normal and they\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>

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Walker had recently quit her job in New York as licensing manager for a music publisher, moving home with plans to build her dream house. She arrived a week before Irma hit.<\/p>\n

She lives with an aunt now and spends most of her time cleaning other people\u2019s homes and worrying about where to get water amid the rumble of generators and jackhammers.<\/p>

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\u201cIt really takes a toll,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m happy to do the work, but would be lying if I said that it wasn\u2019t really difficult at this point.\u201d<\/p>

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