Nov. 13, 2007 — St. Thomas got a deluge of rain Tuesday, but St. John and St. Croix had only gray skies, said Ernesto Morales, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
"They got one to two inches at the airport on St. Thomas," Morales said late Tuesday afternoon.
Charlotte Amalie and other parts of St. Thomas also experienced heavy rain. Emergency vehicle sirens screamed in frustration with the bottlenecks created by the convergence of taxis, tourists, umbrellas and rivers of water flowing over curbs in downtown Charlotte Amalie Tuesday afternoon. People caught without umbrellas or raincoats huddled close to shop doors and jammed the covered area in front of the Emancipation Station Post Office waiting out the heavy downpour.
Streams born of the deluge rushed down Mafolie Hill, where debris in the road created waist-high fountains of water that shot straight up and sprayed the side window glass of passing vehicles.
The flooding began Tuesday morning, said Sh'reen Arri, who works at the St. Thomas/St. John Chamber of Commerce office in downtown Charlotte Amalie.
"I didn't go out," she said, laughing.
No one could be reached at the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency for more information on damage around St. Thomas.
The rain is the result of an old frontal boundary sitting north of Puerto Rico, Morales said. It will lift to the north over the next 24 hours, resulting in drier weather, he said.
"We've had unstable weather the last couple of days," he said.
However, he said some more showers will arrive Saturday and Saturday night.
Editor's note: Shaun A. Pennington contributed to this story.
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