At 11 a.m. Tuesday, Hurricane Debby was passing over St. John at a relatively fast clip of nearly 22 mph on a north-northwest track and was expected to pass to the north of St. Thomas within the hour.
Debby remained a Category 1 hurricane, with sustained winds of 75 mph, barely above the 74 mph minimum for hurricane status. With the storm's greatest strength in its north-northeast section, the brunt of Debby's winds were passing north of St. John, over the British Virgin Islands.
Winds were gusting over 40 mph with intermittent bands of rain falling on St. Thomas. Meantime, the weather remained for the most part calm and dry on St. Croix.
Forecasters said the islands were likely to experience greater wind and rain after the center of the hurricane moved on to Puerto Rico. They projected that St. Croix could get substantial rain Tuesday afternoon but little in the way of tropical storm-strength and virtually no hurricane-strength winds as Debby continued on a north-northwesterly path.
Knight Quality Stations meterologist Alan Archer said the worst of the storm should have moved west of St. Thomas by 4 p.m.
The 11 a.m. coordinates were 18.5 degrees north latitude and 64.4 west longitude, about 40 miles east of central St. Thomas. Debby was expected to maintain its speed and its track through Tuesday night, reaching the north coast of Puerto Rico by mid-afternoon.
Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 25 miles, with tropical storm-force winds reaching as far as 175 miles. However, forecasters were predicting some strengthening in the next 24 hours, with some speculation that Debby could become a Category 2 hurricane by the time it passed throught the Bahamas toward Florida.
Reconnaissance aircraft reported a minimum central pressure of 999 mb or 29.50 inches.
Rainfall totals of 4 to 6 inches at sea level and as much as 10 inches over mountainous areas were expected along and near Debby's path. Bands were projected to become more frequent throughout the territory during the afternoon and to continue intermittently into Tuesday night. A flash flood watch and a coastal flood warning remained in effect territorywide, with beach erosion and large waves expected near and to the north of where Debby moved across the islands.
In its 11 a.m. advisory, the National Weather Service warned for the first time in connection with Hurricane Debby of the possibilitly of isolated tornadoes as the spiral bands and squalls from the storm continue to move inland, and of waterspouts across the coastal waters.
WSTA Radio meteorologist John Tuohy said around 10:30 a.m. that St. Thomas would "only see the tropical storm force winds, not the hurricand force winds, whichwill be limited to the B.V.I." He added, "The winds do not extend out from the center very far, so this will be a short-lived storm, lasting only an hour or so. I don't think anybody in the U.S.V.I. will get anything more than 60 miles per hour."
Earlier Tuesday morning, the weather territorywide was calmer than residents had gone to bed Monday night expecting. At 9 a.m. Hull Bay was completely empty of boats but the parking lot was full of them, on trailers. E&M Grocery on Hull Bay Road was open at 9 a.m., expecting to stay open for another hour or so.
On the southeast coast of St. Thomas, Watergate resident Mina Orenstein said at 9:30 a.m., "You could light a candle on my front porch. There's practically no wind here," But, she added, "if there weren't a rocky shoreline, you could body surf."
On St. Croix, plans were to return to business as usual Wednesday, with St. Croix Alumina announcing that workers should report for work at their usual times.
In the absence of critical emergency concerns, radio stations turned to other themes. WSTA played music throughout the morning. WVWI talk shows focused more than anything else on a debate over individual versus collective rights with regard to the governor's announcement late Monday night that a curfew would take effect at midnight.
The issue arose in part because the curfew announcement came well after many people had gone to bed believing the storm's strength would not reach the territory until late morning and intending to arise early Tuesday morning to take care of last-minute precautions to protect their property or interests, work that would entail traveling on roads. And out of sense of "urgency or emergency,"as talk show host Sam Topp put it, they went out Tuesday morning in violation of the curfew.
Turnbull called in to Topp Talk at one point to defend his action. "By midnight last night everyone should have protected their property, done all their shopping," he said. He added, that this was "not a decision I made on my own saying ‘I'm going to impose a curfew because I think it's a good thing.'"
He said he made the decision only after conferring with V.I. National Guard Adj. Gen. Cleave McBean and other V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency and police officials. He said the curfew would be lifted "in accordance with the situation." He also said police would "use their discretion" in dealing with curfew violators. "We don't intend to lock people up uncessarily – we don't have anyplace to put them," he added.
