Hard-hit Virgin Islands residents feel like ‘bastard step-children’ of US after Irma

ST JOHN, U.S. Virgin Islands—As Hurricane Irma bore down on the Caribbean last week, Laurel Brannick, a park ranger on far-flung St. John Island, flipped through news channels to see how she might be affected. It appeared the U.S. Virgin Islands didn’t exist. “The weather channels didn’t even include us,” she said. “All they kept saying…