May 4, 2009 — Heavy rains Monday started to turn brown hillsides green, but the deluges caused flooding problems on the roads in St. Thomas and St. John.
While the rain began early in the morning on St. Thomas and St. John, it wasn't until mid-afternoon that St. Croix began to see rain.
Don't look for any relief until the end of the week, said meteorologist Rafael Mojica at the National Weather Service in San Juan. The rain will be heavy at times but will taper off, he said.
"Today is just the beginning," Mojica said. "It's going to be a wet week."
He pinned the wet weather on an upper-level trough interacting with a low-level system. Such interactions often occur in April or May and trigger flash flooding, Mojica said.
Island residents should expect a lull Tuesday with the rain picking up again Wednesday, said Mark Walters, director of the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency.
"We're expecting up to 10 inches of rain by the end of the week," he said.
Residents should also expect windy conditions with gusts between 40 and 50 mph, Walters said.
The rain is needed: Monday was the first time in months it rained any significant amount. When it's dry the soil becomes impenetrable, which forces the rain water to flow down the hill and flood instead of permeating the soil, Mojica said. By Tuesday the soil should start to absorb the water.
By mid-day Monday, several areas experienced flooding. The bridge across the road near the Westin Resort and Villas on St. John closed at 10 a.m., Walters said. Additionally, he said, there was flooding on St. John near the Marketplace shopping center and by the Cruz Bay tennis courts.
Mandela Circle in the Havensight area of St. Thomas also flooded, Walters said.
Conditions on St. John led Gov. John deJongh Jr. to send the island's non-essential government workers home early. He urged the workers as well as parents to listen to the radio Tuesday morning for updates on whether government operations are impacted.
Between midnight and 4 p.m. at Weather Station Zephyr, located at Ajax Peak, St. John, 3.20 inches of rain fell. This compares to 0.23 inches of rain for the entire month of April. On Monday, a half inch of rain fell between 8:15 and 8:30 a.m. The heaviest rain fell between 8 and 8:30 a.m. at a rate of 4.97 inches per hour.
And at Weather Station Zephyr, the rain pushed a large planter filled with dirt and plants several feet down the hillside.
Kate Swan, an owner at St. John Hardware at the Marketplace, said at 1:30 p.m. that vehicles were still making it into the parking lot, but with more rain starting to fall she wasn't sure what would happen.
"This is a lot of rain," she said.
The heavy rains caused the Legislature building on St. John to flood, forcing its closure.
"The building floods every time it rains heavy," said Carol Beckowitz, who is Sen. Craig Barshinger's acting chief of staff.
The staff put the furniture up on pieces of wood and shut down all of the electrical equipment to prevent damage, Beckowitz said.
On St. Thomas, Pam Balash at St. Thomas Skyride to Paradise Point, located in the Havensight area, said there was some flooding along Havensight Road, but that it was not totally flooded.
"And Paradise Point is up there in the clouds," she said.
Waters also said that it rained hard at his house in Lindbergh Bay, St. Thomas.
"We need it," he said.
St. Croix resident Julie San Martin, who was in Christiansted, was incredulous when she first heard about the deluges on St. John and St. Thomas, but she called back at 3:15 p.m. to say it was starting to pour.
"It's coming straight down," she said.
At 3 p.m. Bob Scribner said from Frederiksted that it was windy and the waves had kicked up, but there was still no rain.
San Martin, like many others watching their gardens dry up and the amount of water in their cisterns shrink, said she would welcome the rain.
"We are so dry, I really hope it's coming," she said.
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