Honesty Restored at Looted Candy Shop

When looters plundered their candy and tobacco shop in the chaos that accompanied Hurricane Hugo seven months ago, Hal and Mary Longer decided to return to the States.

Now they have decided to stay, touched by the unexpected honesty of some of the looters.

While cleaning up their ransacked shop, the Longers were astonished to find a dozen IOUs from people who took part in a three-day looting rampage on St. Croix Island after Hugo struck Sept. 17.

Then other fellow residents--realtors, business people, a lawyer, even a territorial senator--began stopping by to confess that they, too, had taken things from the store and would pay for them.

“It makes me feel great that there are some honest people in the world,” Longer, 63, said recently in his refurbished store.

“It restores your faith,” his wife, 49, said from behind the candy counter.

Of the three main U.S. Virgin Islands, east of Puerto Rico, the hurricane hit St. Croix by far the hardest. About 90% of the houses were destroyed or damaged, and reconstruction continues on the island, which has 55,000 permanent residents.

St. Croix’s image as a Caribbean tourist haven was tarnished by the looting.

Scores of businesses were plundered. About 100 people were arrested, and even some police officers and national guardsmen were accused of taking part in the looting.

President Bush sent 1,100 military police, who remained for two months.

The Longers, who moved to St. Croix from Davenport, Iowa, in 1987, were visiting Philadelphia when the hurricane struck. They returned two weeks later to find their shop, called Steele’s Smokes & Sweets for a previous owner, in ruins.

“The place was a mess,” Longer said. “The inventory was trashed and even the scales were gone. Cleaning up was the worst, because they threw stuff all over the walls. There was no need for that.”

Their house also was heavily damaged. The Longers said they were ready to move back to the mainland.

That was before they found IOUs for stolen goods that had been left for them in their own shop and the one next door.

One scribbled on an envelope said: “I took four boxes of cigars. I am one of your regular customers. I will pay you when I see you--Bill.”

“On the back of the envelope, someone else wrote: ‘I took some too--Don,”’ Longer said.

Bill and Don later paid their total debt of $100, he said, and added, “Every one of the people but one has voluntarily come in to pay, and I know the one will.”

Longer said a man walked in one day, wandered around as if looking for something to buy, then handed him $27 for six tins of stolen pipe tobacco, and “the guy’s had a smile on his face every time he’s come back in the shop.”

Other St. Croix shopkeepers had similar experiences.

Jeff Seroogy, 39, owns the Solitude Country Store, a grocery in the island’s affluent East End. After he reopened, Seroogy said, people approached him wanting to make amends.

“When I was first told of some of the people who were in the store and what they were doing, I was really mad, just very angry and disappointed,” he said. “But when they started coming back and, indeed, came forth and paid, I wasn’t angry.”

Hal and Mary Longer said their rebuilding costs were $136,000, including $37,000 in damaged or stolen inventory, and insurance covered all but $14,000 of the loss.

The main reason they decided to stay, they said, is the way their customers have treated them since the hurricane.

Lt. Gov. Derek Hodge said the IOUs showed that many looters were ordinary people panicked by the ferocious storm.

“In the darkest days of our despair, there were those who recognized being a good citizen still had a value,” he said.