Peter Cuffy, trailed by a stray neighborhood dog, arrives to check on his home in Codrington; Jenita Cuffy, his wife, surveys some of their home's damage; Peter Cuffy hammers planks into his front door to seal it.

She is decked out in her Sunday best, her husband, Peter, and son Garen by her side. They have come to worship at a small revival hall behind St. John’s Pentecostal House of Restoration on Antigua, 39 miles across sparkling turquoise waters. Their preacher from back home on Barbuda, Bishop Nigel Henry, offered solace and spirit to his displaced flock. By boat and airlift, Barbudans had found a temporary home on Antigua, in shelters and the homes of Antiguan families.

“Affliction,” Henry cried out, his voice echoing through the church. “My people, we have an affliction. It’s like a lawn mower took down our island, and it’s amazing that we’re still here, still alive. Our little island didn’t bother anyone. All we did was love to have fun. And yet still, we had it. A Category 5 plus plus plus.”

The old folks might go back, the bishop said, but “a lot of the younger ones, they’re going to find jobs, go to schools, here in Antigua. I don’t think they’re going back.”

It’s a question Cuffy and her family already are mulling. On Antigua, Garen, 9, swiftly acquired a taste for KFC and Big Banana Pizza — the kind of chains that never made it to Barbuda.

Last week, he was in the back seat of a family friend’s car when it suddenly started to rain. Garen curled up in a ball. The rain summoned memories of the bathroom cupboard where his parents had hid him as Irma tore at their Barbuda home.

“He says he won’t go back, ever,” Cuffy said. “It puts me of two minds, you know. I want to go back . . . but he’s my son.”

Later, in the small Antigua apartment a cousin has lent them, Cuffy’s 60-year-old mother, Junie John, wasn’t hearing any of it.

“We got to go back, it’s home,” she said, slapping her hands on her lap.

Lestroy John, Junie’s husband and Cuffy’s stepfather, chimed in: “Oh, we goin’ back. My people there. Gonna be there.”

Cuffy went silent. She recalled the 1995 storm, Hurricane Luis, which tore things up good, but not like Irma. Junie remembers the earthquake in 1974. It was bad, too. And it’s not like family never left. One sister moved to the District, the other to Antigua. But they left for work, not to escape the storms.

“We always rebuilt, we always stayed put,” Junie John said. “My mother always told me, ‘Junie, mind your land.’ We have done that. No gonna stop now.”

Faiola reported from Antigua and Barbuda; Schmidt from Puerto Rico; and Fisher from Washington.