{
  "id": "1995-09-15-university-of-virgin-islands-hurricane-marilyn",
  "slug": "university-of-virgin-islands-hurricane-marilyn-1995-09-15",
  "institution": {
    "name": "University of the Virgin Islands",
    "shortName": "UVI",
    "state": "VI",
    "type": "territory",
    "enrollment": 2500
  },
  "incident": {
    "date": "1995-09-15",
    "endDate": "1995-09-16",
    "type": "hurricane",
    "cleryCategory": "emergency-notification",
    "headline": "The Storm That Soaked 30,000 Books: Hurricane Marilyn Devastates UVI's St. Thomas Library",
    "summary": "[Hurricane Marilyn tore through the US Virgin Islands over a roughly 14-hour period on September 15-16, 1995](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CZIC-qc945-h874-1996/html/CZIC-qc945-h874-1996.htm), 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](http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9511287617/hurricane-marilyn-devastates-univ-virgin-islands-library), 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": [
    {
      "sequence": 1,
      "type": "initial",
      "timestampApprox": "September 14-15, 1995, Atlantic Standard Time, as Hurricane Marilyn strengthened and tracked toward the Virgin Islands",
      "channel": "unknown",
      "verbatimText": "[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.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": false,
      "sourceDescription": "Reconstructed from NOAA/National Weather Service and USGS storm-history reporting on Hurricane Marilyn's approach to the US Virgin Islands, September 14-15, 1995; no verbatim UVI communication from this pre-web, pre-mass-email era has been located",
      "annotations": [
        "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."
      ],
      "characterCount": 562
    },
    {
      "sequence": 2,
      "type": "update",
      "timestampApprox": "In the days immediately following September 16, 1995, as the extent of campus damage became clear",
      "channel": "unknown",
      "verbatimText": "[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.",
      "isVerbatimConfirmed": false,
      "sourceDescription": "Reconstructed from an EBSCO-indexed 1995 library trade-press report on Hurricane Marilyn's damage to the UVI Paiewonsky Library, and NIST/USGS technical assessments of Marilyn's impact on the US Virgin Islands",
      "annotations": [
        "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."
      ],
      "characterCount": 527
    }
  ],
  "context": "[Hurricane Marilyn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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](https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/1995-sep-15-16-hurricane-marilyn-u-s-virgin-islands-and-puerto-rico-10/) 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](http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9511287617/hurricane-marilyn-devastates-univ-virgin-islands-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](https://www.nist.gov/el/hurricane-marilyn-caribbean-1995) 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.",
  "keyFindings": [
    "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"
  ],
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "Hurricane Marilyn devastates Univ. of Virgin Islands library | American Libraries (EBSCO)",
      "url": "http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9511287617/hurricane-marilyn-devastates-univ-virgin-islands-library",
      "type": "other"
    },
    {
      "title": "Hurricane Marilyn Caribbean 1995 | NIST",
      "url": "https://www.nist.gov/el/hurricane-marilyn-caribbean-1995",
      "type": "official-archive"
    },
    {
      "title": "Hurricane Marilyn, September 15-16, 1995 | US Government Publishing Office (NOAA Coastal Services Center)",
      "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CZIC-qc945-h874-1996/html/CZIC-qc945-h874-1996.htm",
      "type": "official-archive"
    },
    {
      "title": "1995 -- Sep 15-16, Hurricane Marilyn, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico | usdeadlyevents.com",
      "url": "https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/1995-sep-15-16-hurricane-marilyn-u-s-virgin-islands-and-puerto-rico-10/",
      "type": "other"
    },
    {
      "title": "Hurricane Marilyn | Wikipedia",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Marilyn",
      "type": "other"
    },
    {
      "title": "University of the Virgin Islands | Wikipedia",
      "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_the_Virgin_Islands",
      "type": "other"
    }
  ],
  "confidence": "medium",
  "tags": [
    "hurricane",
    "marilyn",
    "us-virgin-islands",
    "territory",
    "st-thomas",
    "library-disaster",
    "historic",
    "1995",
    "pre-digital-alerting",
    "caribbean"
  ],
  "dateAdded": "2026-07-03",
  "lastUpdated": "2026-07-03",
  "addedBy": "ingestion"
}