This requires water. there s no water. it s essentially what the dutch marines. this is the last paper they printed on tuesday. the day before the hurricane hit. and this is the headline. businesses must close at noon. curfew, 8:00 p.m. with all this, there s one glimmer of hope. we ve learned, now, that tomorrow, two things are going to reopen that are key to a normal functioning life here in st. maarten. that s supermarkets. a couple of supermarkets said they re reopening on wednesday. that s going to bring up great relief to the population of st. maarten. and gas stations, as well. a couple warned they would be reopen. and there will be stuaecurity t make sure it s done in an orderly fashion. the very beginning of life beginning in st. maarten. french president macron is
To be a hugely complicated effort. 200,000 people across the caribbean in need of aid. 91% of the buildings on st. maarten alone wiped out. it is a desperate situation. it will take a lot of coordination between different countries. while the french are in charge of french st. martin and guadalu guadalupe. for now, alyson, the real focus is trying to get people out who still want to get out. there are still thousands of people on st. martin. it is still pretty desperate indeed. clarissa, thank you for that update. let s talk about how to get aid to the people who most desperate lu need it. we have officials from the
Great to see you. glad she had her clothes on. that would have been awkward. shepard: she had clothes on, but you know, there wasn t a lot there. she doesn t have ac. she was warm. shepard: it s not chilly down there. that s all i m going to say about it. shepard: thanks, jeff. great to see you. i mentioned the caribbean, mentioned st. maarten a minute ago. we re getting a better idea of exactly what the storm did. there s pictures coming in to us there. they re not good. no. the wall street journal put together this view. the before and afters. you can see with the slide. the boats are on top of each other. the buildings are gone. all the green vegetation has turned brown from the sand and wind snapping. shepard: you don t have different vegetation codes.
As they step into this terminal, first time they re in an air conditioned environment since the storm plowed through. we ve heard truly remarkable stories, many of them first-time visitors to the island. others people just starting their lives together, one newlywed couple that we spoke to yesterday were overcome by a sense of relief to be here. especially because they were married three days before the storm swept through st. maarten, where they got married. today they re away from what they call the lawlessness in the neighboring islands. there is that concern and really what s happening there. but again everybody is feeling that they re at least a sense of relief. they may not be home, alisyn. at least being here in puerto rico, it is one step closer to getting there. okay. polo, thank you very much for that report. we ll check back with you. meanwhile, hurricane irma tore through the caribbean before slamming florida leaving, as you know, a path of great destruction.
juan: most people today are giving thanks to god it wasn t worse. the sense was this was going to be a devastating storm and wipe out things. if you re in miami that s not the case. the surge did not appear and the surge is what was held the potential to take people off the streets and to damage people and property in ways that we can t anticipate because we haven t seen something like that. i think that one of the things that is important to note here is that there is real damage and real lives lost in the caribbean in much higher numbers where the storm hit earlier. places like st. maarten s and wiped away and you go to some of these lesser antilles and damage just unbelievable kinds of damage that will impact them as we head towards the holiday season when they make their money. you come up the u.s. east coast and again it is not over because what i m hearing is it