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On Thursday, sailors shoveled the sand into 6-feet-tall (2meter-high) piles, an attempt to rescue one of the region's greatest assets. Brochures brag that the Mexican Caribbean's sugar-white beaches don't get hot in the sun.

In a sign that the tourism industry that sustains the island will be slow to recover, hotels were boarded up and there were no signs of reconstruction unlike in Cancun, where bulldozers are already clearing debris.

Hundreds waited in line with plastic jugs, hoping to get a bit of drinking water brought in daily by ferries. Helicopters fly in more aid, taking off from Cancun's bullring.

Fishermen on Isla Mujeres said the storm scared away most of the fish, Peering into the water, a shallow reef just offshore was abandoned by sea life.

"The people here fish," said fisherman José Sánchez, 61. "But now there aren't fish, so we don't do anything."

The storm left Marielle Hendriksen, a Netherlands native who has lived on the island for nearly five years, out of work. Her dive shop has closed for several months until it can repair a dock that was blown away by Wilma's wind and waves.

But she said she was happy to see officials recovering the beaches' sand.

"It will take a lot of work and a lot of time, but some of the beaches can be recovered," she said.

Hendriksen was one of the few on the island who said they had received handouts of rice, beans and sugar.