After Irma, Barbuda isn't ready for evacuees' return

CODRINGTON, Barbuda - It was a grim homecoming.

Crumpled sheet metal, shattered glass, snapped wooden planks, clothing and remnants of refrigerators, stoves and flat-screen televisions were strewn where a village bustled the day before Hurricane Irma visited this tiny Caribbean island in early September.

Days after Irma left, another hurricane seemed poised to strike Barbuda, and all 1,800 people were ordered to evacuate to neighboring Antigua. The second storm missed. But a month later, residents were trickling back to see what they could salvage.

"When I look at it, all I can say is that we're lucky to be alive," said 53-year-old Devon Christian, who lost one of his two houses as well as his job. The storm decimated the Coco Point Lodge, the luxury resort where he tended bar for more than three decades.