Irma Death Toll Rises to 38 in Caribbean

Virgin Group Ltd. founder Richard Branson, whose home on Necker Island was damaged in the storm, urged governments to send money and aid to help with disaster relief and rebuild the region’s shattered communities.

“What makes the Virgin Islands unique is its isolated location—every island has been devastated, so there is no support to come from nearby. We must get more help to the islands to rebuild homes and infrastructure and restore power, clean water and food supplies,” Mr. Branson said.

He added that while he and his guests rode out the storm in a cellar, many of the buildings and vegetation on the island were destroyed or badly damaged. “We have seen first-hand just how ferocious and unforgiving this storm was,” he said.

Jeff McNutt, the co-owner of Dive BVI, a scuba-diving business on Virgin Gorda, one of the smaller of the British Virgin Islands, traveled by boat from Puerto Rico to the port of Spanish Town on Friday to deliver a load of ready-made meals, diapers, medicine, water and other supplies organized by the private sector.

Mr. McNutt said virtually all electrical and telephone poles on the island have been knocked down, and roughly 90% of structures have no roof after Irma collided with the island chain Thursday.

Community leaders on Virgin Gorda reported no casualties from the storm. But a humanitarian crisis is mounting as islanders run low on essentials, Mr. McNutt said. “People are going to be out of food and water in the next day or two if they’re not resupplied,” he said, speaking by phone from Orlando, Fla.

Adding to the island’s troubles, it will likely take six months or more to restore power, he said, endangering its tourist-centric economy for the next year.

Freeman Rogers, editor of the Beacon newspaper on Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, said that U.K. Marines were on the ground distributing supplies and keeping order. Supermarkets are operating on limited hours and water is difficult to find, but food shortages haven’t been reported since troops arrived, he said.

Homes on Tortola, which has about 24,000 residents, are typically built with cement walls and wooden roofs, making them vulnerable to high winds.

“One really big issue right now is going to be a shortage of housing,” said Mr. Freeman, who rode out the storm in a church shelter with his girlfriend. His own house was badly damaged. “I don’t know where everybody is going to live.”

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Monday the U.K. now has 700 troops in the region and more than 50 police officers helping with the relief effort. Speaking to the British Broadcasting Corp., he described the devastation wrought by Irma as “an unprecedented catastrophe.”

Evacuees arriving on the first flight from St. Maarten walk on the tarmac at the Eindhoven Military Airbase in the Netherlands on Monday. Photo: robin van lonkhuijsen/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Many smaller islands were still busy digging out from the storm, which was far more powerful when it swept through the region than when it hit Florida days later.

Officials from the Red Cross and local government of Turks and Caicos have been unreachable since late Thursday, when Irma left much of the country without power and many roads inundated with water.

On the Dutch side of St. Martin, King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Dutch interior minister Ronald Plasterk arrived Monday to survey the devastation and talk to soldiers and humanitarian workers about security, according to a statement published by the Dutch Royal House. Residents described widespread looting over the weekend as food and water supplies ran low. Some 400 soldiers were deployed to the Dutch side of the island and another 150 soldiers are set to arrive in coming days, the Defense Ministry said.

Evacuations were taking place by sea and air. The first transport plane of evacuees from St. Maarten landed at a military airfield in the Dutch town of Eindhoven. Some 100 people, mostly tourists, family members of Dutch personnel and patients, were onboard, according to the defense ministry.

The cruise ship Adventure of the Seas docked in Philipsburg on Sunday, and Royal Caribbean International said Monday it dispatched ships to both St. Maarten and nearby St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, to provide supplies and help transport evacuees.

Norwegian Cruise Line ’s Norwegian Sky is on its way to St. Thomas to bring supplies and assist in the humanitarian effort, the company said Monday. Its Norwegian Escape ship is sailing at full capacity with some 4,000 displaced guests who were unable to secure flights back home.

In a region heavily dependent on tourism, many islands are only beginning to glimpse the long-term economic costs of the storm. Islands like Anguilla, a British territory, reported 90% of structures or infrastructure damaged. Hotels in both St. Thomas and St. John were badly hit.

“There will be no tourist season for St. Thomas and St. John,” said Samuel Topp, a spokesman for the territory’s Joint Information Center.

In Cuba, Irma was the first Category 5 storm to hit the island-nation since 1932, state media said. Waves as high as 27 feet breached Havana’s sea wall and flooded the capital’s crumbling colonial center and the upscale neighborhood of Vedado. Images showed residents wading in waist-deep water along the iconic Malecon seafront promenade. Early Monday, the power remained out in much of Havana and the outlying provinces.

“Most residents have little or no information about casualties or relief efforts because most of Havana still has no electricity,” said Rene Arencibia, a 58-year-old film director and Havana resident. “But people are used to these natural disasters and there’s no chaos. Everyone´s cleaning up and fixing what they can.”

The colonial city center and leafy neighborhood of Vedado—popular tourist areas with large hotels as well as many privately owned bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants—were among the city’s most affected areas. “Many streets were flooded and the heavy winds uprooted large trees,” Mr. Arencibia said, inflicting significant damage to houses and buildings.

Rubble from collapsed buildings is piled up in Grand-Case, on St. Martin, after it was hit by Hurricane Irma. The death toll from the storm rose to 38 on Monday. Photo: martin bureau/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

—Robbie Whelan and Valentina Pop contributed to this article.