Campus Alert Archive
UVI

The Storm That Soaked 30,000 Books: Hurricane Marilyn Devastates UVI's St. Thomas Library

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Hurricane Marilyn tore through the US Virgin Islands over a roughly 14-hour period on September 15-16, 1995, one of the most destructive storms in territorial history, killing at least 8 people across the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and causing well over a billion dollars in damage. At the University of the Virgin Islands, the storm devastated the Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library on the St. Thomas campus, soaking the collection badly enough that recovery crews wiped water-damaged books with ethanol and laid them out to dry in the sun, an estimated $500,000 loss.

Alerts
2
Response
—
Killed
—
Injured
—
Institution
University of the Virgin Islands
Territory · VI
~2,500 students
Official alert policy
Read when and how UVI says it will use Bucs Alert (Rave Mobile Safety) — summarized, quoted, and analyzed.
Confirmed Timeline

Alert Sequence

2 messages in sequence

Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.

INITIAL ALERTUnknown
Approximate reconstruction562 chars
[University of the Virgin Islands announcement, reconstructed]: The University of the Virgin Islands is closed effective immediately as Hurricane Marilyn approaches the territory. Students remaining in campus residence halls should report to the designated shelter area on the St. Thomas campus and follow the instructions of housing and security staff. Faculty and staff should complete storm preparations at home. Monitor local radio and National Weather Service broadcasts for further updates; the campus will remain closed until conditions are assessed safe.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

The US Virgin Islands observe Atlantic Standard Time (AST, UTC-4) year-round and do not observe daylight saving time.
In 1995, UVI (renamed from the College of the Virgin Islands in 1986) had no branded text or email alert system; campus notifications of this era relied on local radio, campus bulletins, and word of mouth, unlike the modern 'UVI Alert' system used in the 2010s and 2020s.
Marilyn passed directly over St. Thomas and St. John, the location of UVI's main campus, making it one of the most direct hurricane strikes the university has ever experienced.
UPDATEUnknown
Approximate reconstruction527 chars
[University of the Virgin Islands announcement, reconstructed]: The University of the Virgin Islands campus on St. Thomas sustained significant damage from Hurricane Marilyn, including serious water intrusion at the Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library. Recovery crews are working to salvage the library's collection. The campus remains closed while damage assessment and cleanup continue; students and employees will be notified before classes resume. The University extends its sympathy to all in our community affected by this storm.

This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.

The Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library's book losses were estimated at roughly $500,000; salvage crews reportedly wiped water-damaged volumes with ethanol and laid them in the sun to dry, an emergency preservation method for a collection with no modern digital backup.
UVI's own meteorological monitoring equipment on campus recorded falling barometric pressure and rising wind speeds through the height of the storm until the instruments stopped functioning, among the more detailed on-island records of Marilyn's intensity.
Marilyn is remembered in the territory as one of the most destructive storms in modern US Virgin Islands history, a benchmark the islands would not see matched again until Irma and Maria in 2017.
Context

Background

Hurricane Marilyn formed in the Atlantic in mid-September 1995 and struck the US Virgin Islands on September 15-16, tracking directly across St. Thomas and St. John over a roughly 14-hour period. The storm killed at least 8 people across the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico and damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of homes, prompting a major federal disaster response. The University of the Virgin Islands, then known by its current name after a 1986 rebranding from the College of the Virgin Islands, operated its main campus on St. Thomas directly in the storm's path. Marilyn devastated the campus's Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library, where water intrusion damaged an estimated $500,000 worth of books; the library hired a disaster-recovery firm that wiped affected volumes with ethanol and dried them in the sun in an effort to salvage the collection, a case still cited in library-preservation literature. Weather instrumentation on the UVI campus recorded falling pressure and rising winds through the peak of the storm before the equipment itself stopped functioning. This 1995 storm, more than two decades before UVI's much better-documented 2017 encounter with Hurricanes Irma and Maria, illustrates that catastrophic hurricane impacts on the territory's only public university are a recurring, not novel, feature of its history; UVI would not face another storm of comparable severity until Irma and Maria struck within 13 days of each other in September 2017.
Analysis

Key Findings

Hurricane Marilyn struck the US Virgin Islands directly over St. Thomas and St. John on September 15-16, 1995, killing at least 8 people across the USVI and Puerto Rico combined
UVI's Ralph M. Paiewonsky Library suffered an estimated $500,000 in water damage to its book collection, requiring emergency ethanol-and-sun-drying preservation efforts
The 1995 storm predates any digital or branded campus alert system at UVI; no verbatim record of the university's own closure communications from this era has been located
Marilyn stands as UVI's most severe documented hurricane impact prior to the back-to-back Category 5 strikes of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017, 22 years later
Provenance

Sources

  1. Source
    Hurricane Marilyn devastates Univ. of Virgin Islands library | American Libraries (EBSCO)
    connection.ebscohost.com
    archived copy
  2. Official
    Hurricane Marilyn Caribbean 1995 | NIST
    nist.gov
    archived copy
  3. Official
    Hurricane Marilyn, September 15-16, 1995 | US Government Publishing Office (NOAA Coastal Services Center)
    govinfo.gov
    archived copy
  4. Source
    1995 -- Sep 15-16, Hurricane Marilyn, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico | usdeadlyevents.com
    usdeadlyevents.com
    archived copy
  5. Source
    Hurricane Marilyn | Wikipedia
    en.wikipedia.org
    archived copy
  6. Source
    University of the Virgin Islands | Wikipedia
    en.wikipedia.org
    archived copy
Cite this case

Campus Alert Archive. "University of the Virgin Islands: The Storm That Soaked 30,000 Books: Hurricane Marilyn Devastates UVI's St. Thomas Library." Incident of September 15, 1995. Added July 2026. https://campusalertarchive.com/case/university-of-virgin-islands-hurricane-marilyn-1995-09-15/

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Alert text quoted on this page remains the work of the issuing institution; the archive is a secondary source.

Tags
hurricanemarilynus-virgin-islandsterritoryst-thomaslibrary-disasterhistoric1995pre-digital-alertingcaribbean
Added July 2026Updated July 2026Via ingestion