Thousands of Americans Stranded on Saint Maarten Island as New Hurricane Barrels Toward Them

By Andrea Ruth | 2:32 PM on September 09, 2017

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In this GOES-13 satellite image taken Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017 at 7:15 a.m. EDT, and released by NASA/NOAA GOES Project, Hurricane Irma tracks over Saint Martin and the Leeward Islands. Hurricane Irma roared into the Caribbean with record force early Wednesday, its 185-mph winds shaking homes and flooding buildings on a chain of small islands along a path toward Puerto Rico, Cuba and Hispaniola and a possible direct hit on densely populated South Florida. (NASA/NOAA GOES Project via AP)

The popular Caribbean tourist destination island of Saint Maarten was left devastated in the wake of Hurricane Irma, and now we know via the U.S. consulate that almost 6,000 Americans have been left stranded.

As residents of the island begin to rebuild, the U.S. Consulate General in Curacao is working on ways to get Americans out via boat or air.

In the meantime, visitors and residents, regardless of citizenship, are left without power and clean water.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told the AP the storm “caused wide-scale destruction of infrastructure, houses and businesses.”

“There is no power, no gasoline, no running water. Houses are under water, cars are floating through the streets, inhabitants are sitting in the dark in ruined houses and are cut off from the outside world,” he said.

To make matters worse, a new hurricane, Jose, has developed in the Atlantic and is tracking to hit Saint Maarten, as well as other islands already destroyed by Irma, as recovery efforts are just beginning.

Video shows just how bad things on Saint Martin are right now: