I haven't seen any updates in over a month. Does anyone have new info or pictures of how things are going around Orient Beach?

Club Orient's facebook page has some updates.
The Perch is open in a limited way. They're still waiting to sort out insurance details and for the beach to be certified safe for swimming.

It's going to be a long process.

This Sxmdronechristophe Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Sxmdronechristophe-1017182718338250/has some amazing images of Orient Beach.
Check out this one especially... Amazing Aerial of Club Orient Posted 11-28-2017 https://www.facebook.com/1017182718338250/photos/a.1017366658319856.1073741830.1017182718338250/1671585746231274/?type=3&theaterand this...
Amazing aerial view of Club O from the water https://www.facebook.com/1017182718338250/photos/pcb.1671587036231145/1671586802897835/?type=3&theater

Great photos. Can't wait to be back a year from now.

Thanks for posting Mainahs! From what I had seen prior I had believed everything was gone. Now I can see there's at least something to work with. Gives me hope!!

Received the below email this afternoon:

"Dear Friends,

I hope all of you enjoyed the holidays and are looking forward to a great New Year. I know those of us on St. Martin are certainly hoping for a better 2018. It would be tough to imagine a worse year than 2017!

We are doing our best to keep you updated on where we are in the re-building/renewal process, as well as getting back on track and handling the office/accounting issues we have faced.

We have received many questions and one of the more common ones is, ?why hasn?t Club Orient started clean-up or rebuilding?? We mentioned this briefly in the posting and email in December, but would like to provide a more thorough explanation. Club Orient is really two entities. There is the management company, OBC, and the association of homeowners, Copro. OBC has received its insurance payment and is ready to begin on the areas that it is responsible for maintaining.

Copro, which is ALL of the rooms, plus the Papagayo, front office and part of the Boutique, are responsible to clean-up, repair and or rebuild those areas. They have not yet received their insurance payment. OBC, the management company, does not have the right to become involved with the property of the Copro. How quickly will this be settled? We don?t know, but we think shortly as they are working diligently on getting this rectified. By the way, there are literally hundreds of claims on the island that have not been settled as yet, so we are not the only ones dealing with this.

Having said that, none of this means that we are not rebuilding. It just takes more time than we would have liked.

With generous donations from our friends and loyal guests, we have already retained an engineer and an architect. We will be receiving our initial drawings next week. Just this week, we received the new building requirements from the government for beachfront development.

Unfortunately, in a situation like this, social media is filled with anecdotes, comments, comparisons and critiques from people who have no idea what is really happening on the island or in a particular business. Some pass along accounts they heard from ?someone who knows? or they may have talked to someone on the beach or who lives on St. Martin.

Please, if you have a question just write to us and ask before posting hearsay. We can?t always promise you a quick response, but we will respond. We do our best to be factual and tell you only what we believe to be true.

The other things on which we receive comments are, ?why did my friend get his deposit refunded from another hotel and Club Orient still has not sent mine?? We share your frustration. We have tried to be as clear as possible. First of all, not all resorts received the devastating damage that Club Orient sustained. We lost everything in the storm, including all of our records, computers, and access to our servers for a number of weeks, as they had been looted and damaged. We had no reliable phone service or internet for months. We have slowly been making progress and just recently, were able to begin issuing refunds on a credit card machine. This was not possible even one week ago. Refunds had to be checked and money wired from our account to a US bank and a check written and then mailed via regular mail, in many instances. This could take a few days to arrive or even a few weeks.

How could other hotels do it? Many hotels use a foreign bank, i.e. US, Canada, France, etc. and often, the funds for the deposits were never in St. Martin in the first place. Also, some of the larger foreign hotels have access to funds without waiting for insurance and their reservation systems do not reside on servers in St. Martin.

Most importantly, many resorts, especially on the Dutch side, were not completely destroyed and could get access to their records and create at least a makeshift office. Bottom line, the four of us (mostly Florence) are answering emails and processing things as quickly as we can.

We know it is difficult for people to comprehend what has happened to us without seeing it and especially living it every day. Elsewhere, when disasters happen, such as the hurricanes that impacted Houston and Florida last year, an army of help and aid immediately swings into action, including FEMA, Red Cross, the National Guard, Salvation Army and many others. These areas have access to materials, equipment and trained workers to almost immediately begin putting things back together.

These places also have Federal, State and local resources to draw upon to aid in the recovery and rebuilding. So far, we have received almost no help from Paris.

The above is not an excuse for not moving more quickly or efficiently. It is simply the reality that we are now living. At a recent French Hotel Association meeting, about half of the 20 hotels that were present were not certain they could ever re-open, while others gave estimates of 6 months to 2 years.

We would like to ask you to please bear with us, as we are doing the best we can with little assistance and under very challenging circumstances.

On a more positive note, we are awaiting the initial drawings from the architect that many of you helped us retain, showing the wonderful new facilities, which we hope will become part of the revitalized Club Orient Resort. In the meantime, we are still planning to open a few rooms before the end of this year and will let you know as soon as we have an ETA. Thanks to all of you for everything, but especially for sticking with us. We look forward to welcoming you back!"