As heavy rains and hurricane forecasts remind the Virgin Islands of the season’s uncertainty, a different kind of emergency training just wrapped up underwater. Local coral disturbance Strike Teams — volunteer divers already known for their fight against coral disease — completed a pilot program designed to turn them into “reef first responders,” ready to stabilize reefs after storms, vessel groundings, or other sudden damage.
“This is like building a firefighter squad for our coral reefs,” said Jordan Schneider, president of Ceiba Strategies, which manages the Strike Team program for the Department of Planning and Natural Resources. “We’re preparing divers to jump into action when reefs need help most.”
Strike Teams have been on the frontlines since 2019, hand-treating corals sickened by Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease with underwater doses of amoxicillin. Their work has preserved countless colonies, even as SCTLD wiped out much of the Caribbean’s reef-building corals. With fewer susceptible corals left and new threats looming — bleaching, invasive species, and debris from storms — DPNR has broadened the teams’ mission.
The two-day pilot training recently held at Butler Bay on St. Croix and Coki Bay on St. Thomas brought together 21 divers, some with professional coral restoration backgrounds and others trained through the Strike Team program. On land, they practiced belt transects, simulating reef surveys with markers. In the water, they carried out full damage assessments, geotagged coral fragments, and learned to stabilize broken colonies using lift bags and marine epoxy. “The corals we re-secure are often the survivors — the ones that have made it through years of bleaching and disease,” explained diver Logan Williams. “Saving them strengthens the whole reef.”
Training also included safe transport techniques for rare or ESA-listed species, which may need to be moved to nurseries to preserve genetic diversity. That skill was quickly put to use. Just days after the session, Strike Team divers were called to St. Croix, where a vessel set adrift during Hurricane Erin had smashed into an endangered elkhorn coral colony before washing ashore. The incident left behind debris now under DPNR investigation, but also offered an early, real-world test of the team’s new skills.
Local partners, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Coral Restoration Foundation, CORE Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, Thriving Islands, East End Marine Park, Sea Grant, and the University of the Virgin Islands, all helped shape the curriculum. Their goal is to create a territory-wide coral emergency response network — a collaborative effort that will allow reefs and the communities that rely on them to recover more quickly after damage.
Schneider said the training is only a beginning. “We’ll keep refining the program as we respond to more incidents, and my hope is to expand it to include more local divers,” he said. “The stronger our network, the faster our reefs — and the communities that depend on them — can recover.”
Community members who see a grounded vessel or reef damage are urged to contact DPNR’s Coral Disturbance Response Coordinator, Courtney Tierney, at courtney.tierney@dpnr.vi.gov.
