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Verified verbatimUVI Official News — UVI Campuses to Close at 2 p.m. Today in Advance of Tropical Storm Ernesto575 chars
In preparation for the approach of Tropical Storm Ernesto, the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) will close both of its campuses today at 2 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 13. Tropical Storm Ernesto is projected to pass near or over the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this evening. Non-essential employees are asked to secure their workstations before leaving for the day to allow UVI's Essential Employees in Physical Plant and our Security Offices to properly complete all campus preparations for the storm, including closing shutters and placing sandbags by door thresholds.
Issued Tuesday morning, August 13, 2024 AST, giving the UVI community roughly five hours to wrap up and leave before the 2:00 PM AST closure — short by mainland standards but consistent with UVI's hurricane operations posture for the small, island-bound community
The notice explicitly preserves a two-tier workforce: 'non-essential' employees leave at 2 p.m., 'Essential Employees in Physical Plant and our Security Offices' stay behind to install shutters and stage sandbags — a level of operational detail rarely included in mainland weather closures
Mentioning 'shutters' and 'sandbags by door thresholds' grounds the notice in the physical reality of Caribbean campus hardening; both St. Thomas and St. Croix campuses sit in hurricane-vulnerable coastal zones still bearing damage from Irma and María (2017)
The pairing of the closure with the postponement of freshman Orientation — initially set for the same evening — highlights how late-summer storms compress the start-of-semester window for UVI's roughly 1,800 students