How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Dearest Family and Friends,

                Thank you so much for your prayers for our family.  Now that a little time has passed and we’ve been able to relax and recuperate a bit, I wanted to share our story with you.  I will write all of the little details that I remember here, so there will be more than one post over the next few days.  If you’d like to hear our story, pour yourself a cup of coffee (or K’s favorite, Diet Pepsi) and settle in with us for a tale of God’s incredible mercy.

                On Saturday afternoon (9/16) I was studying in our bedroom (which doubles as my office.)  On a whim, I checked the NOAA website, which tracks tropical storms/hurricanes in both the Atlantic and Pacific.  I noticed a few new ones, namely Tropical Depression Lee and Disturbance #15.  I made a mental note to recheck the website when I finished studying; later that night, the storm had become Tropical Depression Maria.  Early Sunday morning, she was Tropical Storm Maria, with suggestions that she would likely become a hurricane by the next day, likely passing over our home island of Dominica.  After a few jokes at church, K and I decided to pick up some water jugs at our local shop before heading home to our apartment.  I also made a quick check at home and refilled all of our empty gallon jugs using our Brita filter.  Later that night, we received an email from campus notifying us that campus would be closed the next day and that we should prepare enough food and water to last a few days.  We had plenty of canned goods and bags of pasta in the pantry, so we felt okay on our food supply.

                Monday came with blustery winds and gray skies.  Maria had become a Category 1 hurricane and was forecasted to become at least a Category 3 by late in the day.  I had an exam scheduled for Tuesday, so I spent quite a bit of time in the bedroom trying to study.  I say “trying to study” because I would read one line, then think about how the hurricane might impact our island, and especially our family.  Eventually, around 3:00 PM, I gave up studying, as we were getting constant weather reports from online indicating that Maria had strengthened to a Category 4.  Around 6:30 PM, we received an email from the Dean of the Dominica campus, which alerted us to the fact that this hurricane was potentially dangerous, and that we should shelter in place.  Just after this, the lights went out.

                A few minutes went by and our generator kicked into gear.  We went into the bedroom and peered out to the northwest, towards the direction of campus, and at many of the other student housing apartments, some of which did not have generators.  The winds picked up speed and as we laid E down into bed, I laid next to him, iPad in hand, to study my notes.  K walked in a little while later, informing me that Maria had become a Category 5.  Externally, I remained calm, internally, I felt ready to run or fight, whatever I had to do to protect our little one.  K suggested that we move the mattress into the living room, where we only had a small window above the door and one much farther away in the kitchen.  He felt we would be safer there than in the bedrooms, which both contained two larger windows.  I held E close as K wrestled the mattress next to our interior wall, barricading it in with the couch.  I moved E’s sound machine and bunny, Lenny, into our bed for the night. 

                K and I both attempted to call our parents and were thankfully successful.  K’s parents kept us up to date with storm information and told us that they had been in constant prayer for us.  My parents encouraged us that we would be okay and that this would be a really neat story someday.  We were able to send one last text before our internet went down around 9:30 PM.  So we laid down, nestling E between us, preparing for a long night.

                Around 11:30, we ventured into the bedroom to get a firsthand look at the storm. K stepped up to the window, but I was wearing socks and noticed that the floor was wet.  We looked for water coming in from the ceiling, but instead found it leaking in through the windows and from the light sockets on the wall.   When we went back into the living room, it looked like our house was filled with smoke.  We felt panic rising as the winds were gusting and we had already seen a porch roof sheared off our neighbor’s house.  We realized that we would have nowhere to go if the house really was on fire.  Luckily, the “smoke” didn’t smell and instead we decided the haze was a result of all of the water in the atmosphere.  At this point, K and I decided to pack our most important items:  food/clothes/diapers for E, passports, wallets, electronics, and E’s baby book in a bag in case we needed to leave immediately.  We put this bag on a couch and laid down again around our baby.

                It was then that we resolved to shield E’s body with our own, should the winds blow in our door or the windows.

                We laid there, listening intently to the storm.  From 11:30 PM to 1:40 AM, Maria tormented the island, laying waste to many homes.  At one point, we heard what sounded like an outdoor trashcan being thrown around in the apartment above ours.  It would occasionally quiet, only to pick back up again.  Water was flooding both bedrooms and we were fortunate that there is a lip between the bedrooms and living room, which kept our area dry.  Around 2:00 AM, we finally fell asleep, awakened on occasion by the rushing wind. E woke us up the next morning around 6:30 AM.  What we saw when we opened our front door astounded us.  

                In our next post, I'll include more before and after pictures from our island home.

 According to Google, we live in the Middle of Nowhere.  (Actually, Ross is located in Picard, just south of Portsmouth.)  The eye of Maria passed south of us, through the capital of Roseau, then spun north, passing directly over us and Portsmouth as well.

From the Weather Channel, this is how the Maria was forecasted to hit on Monday evening, just before we lost internet.

Our home was the one with the green roof.  We lived on the middle floor, on the right side in this view.  The purple building at the bottom of this picture will be shown in the next post.