Hurricane Hugo

Hurricane Hugo churned through the same section of the Caribbean as Donna, but had weakened from its peak intensity by the time it smashed the US Virgin Islands on Sept. 17/18, 1998 and then struck a glancing blow to Puerto Rico with winds gusting to 160 mph the next day.

Weakened temporarily by its Caribbean Island assault, Hugo intensified significantly prior to landfall as it crossed the Gulf Stream off the Southeast US coast. Hugo blew into Charleston, SC, on the evening of Sept. 21, the autumnal equinox, with winds of 138 mph and a 20 foot storm surge on top of astronomically high tides.

Hurricane Hugo's impressive intensity made it the strongest storm to strike the East Coast north of Florida since Hazel in Oct. 1954. Hugo devastated South Carolina's barrier islands and flattened the Francis Marion National Forest, to the north of Charleston. Its price tag hit $7 billion, earning Hugo the title of “one of the costliest hurricanes ever” in US according to the media.

Those are all facts given by people who study these phenomena’s But I will share with you from the prospective of a survivor. I was in St. Croix when it all happened.

It had been more than thirty five years since St. Croix had gotten hit directly by a hurricane. I was twenty six years old so I had no idea of it would be like. All people would comment was that it would bring lots of wind and rain.

My siblings and I were excited to see it come as were many of the younger people who had never experienced anything like it. We wanted to know what it was like to be hit by a hurricane.

We got as prepared as we thought would be “prepared” enough. We bought canned goods, water, flashlights, batteries and everything else recommended for the experience. We lived in a house made of cement blocks so we felt very secured and prepared.

The winds began to blow strong about midday of the 17th of September. My brother and I decided to drive around to see how the winds were blowing on the trees and to see how rough the waters were.

We got down to Fredericksted and there were police everywhere telling people to go home and stay off the roads. We avoided them by taking a turn away from the main street where they were.

We got right by the water front and we were amazed by how high and how hard the waves were hitting on the street. There were even some fish on the road.

The cops saw us and approached us. They warned us to go home before the situations got worst. My brother and I had gotten a little scared by what we had seen. The fury of the waters could be heard in the roar of every wave. We decided to head home.

A little scared but still very excited, we drove back to the house. The winds had gotten a lot stronger by the time we were half way home. All kind of debris was flying all over the place and we found ourselves praying that we didn’t get hit by something big enough to hurt us or our car. We saw what looked like a large piece of galvanize (aluminum roofing) and we were very concerned to see that roofs were being torn apart by the initial winds of the hurricane.

We got home and started to put the car cover on my brother’s car and the wind got under it as we were both holding an end and it lifted my brother off the ground. We were no longer smiling and the excitement of the hurricane had now turned into concern.

I listened to the radio because there was no electricity to watch the news on TV and I kept tracking the hurricane on the map. As soon as it hit the island of Grenada, I knew that it would hit us. I don’t know how I knew it but I was sure of it. The family wanted me not to speak it out because they were hoping for the hurricane to turn and hit somewhere else.

I was a little upset that my family thought of the hurricane hitting somewhere else to spare us. I knew that they were not willingly hoping for any of the other islands to be hit but it was inevitable that some of the islands were going to be hit by Hugo because of its size.

I told them that I thought it was time for people in St. Croix to see the power of God in action because every year we were spared and people just took God’s care and protection for granted.

Not that I wanted St. Croix to be hit but many of the other islands were hit every year and those people needed a break to recover. Although the experience of Hugo was a hard one, I am glad that some of the other islands were spared that year.

Well, about seven that night, the winds were howling. Debris was slamming into our windows and there was an unknown flapping going on. I looked and saw that a piece of our roofing was damaged and was about to fly off.

I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to alarm anyone especially my mother who was worried about our grandparents being alone in their home. She knew they would be scared and would need help and comforting. She wanted to go stay with them and leave us with my stepfather but it was too late. The winds were too strong and she might have lost her life.

After about two hours of the wind increasing and all kinds of sounds coming from the winds, my mother opened the door of my brother’s bedroom and there was no roof. She was paralyzed by what she was seeing. The sky was now the roof of that room.

She got anxious and started running, pushing my sister and her baby into the closet in their room. There was also my youngest brother and my brother’s girlfriend who she also pushed in that closet.

I was in the bathtub with my other sister’s baby. She was serving in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany. She had brought the child to stay with us for a year.

My mother was screaming and my little brother was crying because the situation had gotten scary. My mother felt out of control and didn’t know what to do. She kept yelling that the entire roof was going to blow away.

I called out to her and asked her to bring everybody inside the bathroom. I took the other baby while my sister, my brother, my mom and stepfather held a mattress over their head to protect themselves from incoming debris.

My mother couldn’t take it anymore, she started screaming and saying that she had to go to grandma to help them. She ran out of the bathroom and ran towards the back door because the winds would not allow the front door to be opened.

I yelled at my brother to go stop her because I knew that if she saw him going after her she would not go to avoid getting him hurt. By the time he got to her, the winds had slammed her into one of the walls of the house. He was able to bring her back.

This took about twenty five minutes and I thought that they were both gone. Meanwhile, I had the two babies on my lap. They both fell asleep like nothing was happening.

My stepfather’s cancer was very advanced and he had lost more than sixty pounds. He was still strong but the terrible disease had debilitated him tremendously. He was holding the mattress with my sister but his arms were trembling uncontrollably. He kept cursing at us to stop moving. He didn’t realize that the strong winds and the weakness in his arms were the cause for the shaking.

My mother and brother came back and took over for him. We were there all together but no one was speaking but the winds of “HUGO.” This hurricane had a male name but it sounded like a screaming woman who was in labor and having trouble with it. At the same time you could almost hear it talk. It seemed like she was yelling for blood while moaning all at once.

Because I could feel its power and its persistence to destroy, I felt that maybe if it got the blood of at least one person it would go away. It actually brought with it what I call a “spirit of insanity” and it was affecting me.

I felt like it was taunting me to run out and let it have my blood. I had to restrain myself and was able to overcome the feeling by praying and holding on to the babies in my arms.

Then it just stopped. There were no more winds, no more sounds and no more taunting. The storm seemed to have stopped just like that. We ran outside and the sight was gruesome. Trees, galvanize roofing, clothes, furniture, glass and household item all over the place.

My mother began rushing us out of the house and I didn’t understand why. My stepfather explained that this was the calm in the center of the eye and that usually the second part of the storm was worst than the first.

I surely couldn’t imagine anything worst than we had just survived. The only part of our house that was not completely destroyed was the bathroom where we shelter. The whole roof was gone and the house was flooded. Everything inside our house was wet.

We had no time to grab anything because soon the winds began blowing mildly and we decided that we had to get to the closest shelter before it started up again.

We got to a school close by and there were hundreds of people, maybe even more than a thousand it seemed like to me. The school was flooded and the men were using the school’s kitchen pots to get some of the water out. The water was knee high and most of us had to climb on the auditorium stage to avoid the high waters.

Unfortunately, the bathrooms were backed up and the water on the stage was contaminated but we found a dry spot because of my stepfather’s condition. Most people knew him and they knew he was very ill. They gave us a spot where he could be comfortable. He was very cold and shaking and we were not as prepared as we thought we were.

I was wearing a long skirt with a short pant underneath and a long T-shirt. I pulled up my skirt over my breast (I had a bra on) and I took off my T-shirt and put it on him. The warmth of my body on the shirt helped him get warm fast in addition to the body heat coming from my sister and me sitting next to him to keep him
warm.

My mother as usual was making herself useful helping other people that needed help. We didn’t see her for a while but we were not worried because people were not allowed to leave because the storm was once again in full force. We knew she was in her own element and doing what she did best.

For another four or five hour, the island was under the fullness of the wrath of “Hurricane Hugo.” Many were concern that if the hurricane lasted any longer, we would have to find a new shelter because things were not looking too good at this one.

The storm subsided and the first thing my mother announced was that we were to stay put while she went with one of my brothers to see about our grandparents.

I knew things were not safe out there but I also knew that this time she would not be stopped. She feared that they might be hurt or even killed by the storm and she was determined to go see how she could help them. When she got there, they told her they had hidden in a closet and she could see how scared and overwhelmed they were. One of them had gotten struck on the head by some debris.

I decided to venture out. I left my stepfather with my sister and her baby. I had the other baby with me and my youngest brother. I looked outside and it was difficult to walk around because of all the debris.

I looked up to the hills and noticed that one of the most beautiful houses in the area that was at the top of the hill, was no longer there. The land it was on looked like it had been swept clean.

I walked around bewildered by the destruction I saw. I thought that maybe hundreds of people might be dead. The devastation was immense and people were crying because of their loss and when they approached me talking about their loss, all I could think of was that it was a miracle that there were no dead people lying on the streets.

There were cars on top of each other, trees on the road and items everywhere. People had begun chopping the trees on the roads to make a way for the cars to be driven.

There were people with machetes all over the place and the tourists thought that they were in mortal danger. I remember being upset when we got the electricity back because the news was showing some of the tourists that were flown out by the Army saying that the island people had machetes to kill the tourists.

Not one death was reported by killing. In fact, the hurricane winds didn’t take any lives either; people died after the fact because of the destruction of the hospital.

Most of the island had no water and no part of the island had electricity. The water situation got resolved in about two weeks but we were without electricity for three months. It took some adjusting but once we accommodated ourselves we were fine.

The day after, we found and empty apartment and decided to claim It. Then it was time to think about food for the babies. My mom and I decided to go to the stores to shop for food not thinking that the devastation was island wide. We went to a store and it was all boarded up. An employee told us that there was a store open at the Sunny Isles Shopping Center, so, we headed there.

When we got there, there were lots of people running with boom boxes, TVs’, clothes, household items and such. We went to a store which had the doors open and an employee told us to go in and take whatever we wanted because most of the stuff in the store had gotten damaged. I couldn’t go in the store because when I left my house the day of the hurricane I had some slippers on and they broke in the process. I was actually barefoot.

My mom told me to stay by the door and she would give me the stuff to put in the car. My mother took everything possible to make the babies as comfortable as possible. They lacked nothing.

I was surrounded by lots of trash bags filled with everything the kids needed. Then my mother went to the pharmacy and got all kinds of medicine; from cold medicine, to ointments to first aid supplies. My mother did not waste time taking stuff we didn’t need. Because the stores were so full with people fighting and arguing over stuff, she would go in, take what she needed and get out.

People noticed that I was watching my mother’s bags so they began asking me to watch their stuff too and I wasn’t going anywhere so I was more than happy to help.

The Army and news helicopters were hovering around the shopping center, taking pictures of what was going on and I was waving at them with a great big smile not knowing that what was going on at the time had a name to it, “LOOTING” It was a miracle I didn’t get arrested along with the people who were arrested.

I believe that besides the fact that God was with me, they didn’t see any electronics or furniture around me. We were taking what we could find out of necessity and because we were being told by the employees that it was okay to do so.

Our apartment became like a social services office where people came for help. We shared everything we had with people who were in need. Once again, my mother found herself being the social worker we all knew her to be.

The hurricane destroyed our homes but also opened doors to new friendships and experiences which added to our appreciation for life and to our quality of life. We were better people for having lived and survived Hurricane Hugo.