Anarchy In Paradise

It was an act of God that devastated St. Croix last week, blowing houses into splinters, closing down the hospital, shutting off water and electricity, leaving residents and tourists in a state of panic. But the island's second wave of destruction was the work of man. When the skies cleared, locals armed with rifles, guns and machetes plundered the ravaged streets of Christiansted and Frederiksted, helping themselves not just to necessities like food and water but also to TV sets, liquor and clothing. As days passed and no outside help came, the looting spread. Thieves browsed through merchandise, trying on sneakers to get the right size. Stores not smashed by the storm were vandalized by hooligans. Lonnie and Elena Scribner, honeymooning on the island, watched as islanders roamed through the debris grabbing whatever they could carry. Gunfire could be heard throughout both cities.

Instead of trying to restore order, local police and National Guardsmen ; apparently joined in, carting off garbage bags full of booty. British tourist Simon Schiller said he watched while a St. Croix policeman drove straight through the center of the violence in Christiansted with a brand-new refrigerator, still in its carton, in the back of his truck. To add to the chaos, when the hurricane buffeted a local prison, 200 inmates escaped and joined the free-for-all.

The post-Hugo damage to St. Croix might have been less if protecting the island's image had not been deemed more important than protecting the island itself. Tourism is St. Croix's largest industry, and officials evidently feared that a revival of racial tensions could cause almost as much harm as Hugo. Memories still linger of 1972, when eight people (seven of them white) were murdered on a golf course by gun-toting black leftists. Virgin Islands Governor Alexander Farrelly, who stayed on St. Thomas, 37 miles away, insisted that reports of lawlessness were distorted and exaggerated. Witnesses, he said, may have mistaken looters for police and guardsmen because they were wearing stolen uniforms and driving hijacked vehicles. Farrelly delayed asking for help until it became clear that Washington was going to send troops whether he wanted them or not.

On Wednesday a Coast Guard patrol of St. Croix reported "a complete breakdown of authority," and six cutters headed for the island to evacuate panicked vacationers. But the restoration of order did not begin until Thursday with the arrival of 1,200 U.S. military police, federal marshals and FBI agents -- the first time Army troops have been used to quell a civil disturbance since the riots in Washington following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. Most of the escaped prisoners have been recaptured. What little there is left to protect is being guarded. St. Croix may have been reduced to the primitive, but civilization has returned.