Most domestic airlines have well planned contingency plans for northers weather like snowstorms. Based on routes these planes tend to sit planes out in the warm aprons of MCO etc. til they can get back into some semblance of route planning. Rarely do you see the likes of the same airline flying in the last flight of the day to a northern city and get the plane cancelled and stuck there.

I suspect that their experience with how to best recover schedules is easiest when they park the planes at these same specific southern airports and return them to service against a smooth and tried plan.

In other words an extra day on the ground is a lot easier to handle when they resume service than having those planes and crew scattered somewhere else.

KLM B747 back at St Maarten
28 oct 2016 would have been the last KLM B747 landing at SXM, now (for tragic reasons) she is back!
According the KLM newsflash, the relief flight is crewed by volunteers :ok:

Great sight to see!

As noted in comments, #1 reverser not deployed. Someone said low mass therefore not required - don't believe that.
Has to be either tech prob or avoiding re-ingestion of debris.

When one acquires a certain amount of personal wealth, it becomes uneconomic to carry any insurance unless it is legally compulsory.

For some, it will be when one has acquired sufficient property or assets that can be sold to offset 99% of the liability with certainty. The other 1% (or more) would probably be disallowed for some reason by an insurance company anyway, and "pseudo" bankruptcy may become an alternative option. Only the middle classes buy insurance out of necessity.

You may well be right, but even as bad as 2004 was, it was relatively "mild" compared to 2005. That year brought us Katrina, Rita, Wilma and so many other storms they actually ran out of names and started using the backup Greek names (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, etc.). Not all hit the US, but nevertheless the storms outlasted the traditional season of June-November and went into December and even January of 2006. Crazy stuff, the likes of which I hope to never see again. That year is the reason I have a whole-house generator and enough food to last for a month, because even though we don't usually flood here the area does turn into an isolated island at times of high water events.

Oddly enough, 2005 also included storms named Harvey, Jose and Maria. :sad:

For more.

Looks like Maria is going to shuffle the rubble in the Leewards Monday and Tuesday.