Marine scientist Deborah Brosnan remembers ¡°feeling like a visitor at an amazing party¡± on her diving trips to a bay near the Caribbean island of Saint Barthelemy where she swam above coral reefs with nurse sharks, sea turtles and countless colorful fish.

But on a return trip after Hurricane Irma ravaged the island in 2017, she dove the reef again ¡ª and was shocked by what she saw.

¡°Everything was dead,¡± she recalled in an interview. ¡°There were no sharks, no sea turtles, no sea grass, no living coral. I felt like I lost my friends.¡±