Many people all over the Carribean were affected by the recent Catergory 4 hurricane, Irma. Some of our very own Atoms and their family were impacted from it. Families either did not have the money to evacute or did not have a place to go to.
Our school is full of students, teachers, and other faculity that have other family members located all over the world. In different states and different countries.
Seniors Grace Hatch, Sapphire Rush, and Janice Milian Guerrero. share how Irma destroyed their homes and left them worried about their families.
Hatch’s family is from Jacksonville, Florida which is towards the Northern region of Florida. “They experienced a lot of damage to their home and yards. Such as many large trees, fences, a ton of flooding and debris,” Hatch said.
It’s shocking to see and experience something like that. A place that you once called home now destroyed.
“My aunt’s main concerns were that they were going to have a lot of damages to the house and her business, meaning they would worry about recieving no income,” Hatch said.
Homes weren’t just destroyed, businesses were too. How can people make money if they don’t have a job to work at.
“But my uncle was more concerned about the damage caused to the house affecting if they could live there or not and if someone was injured, it would majorly impact them currently but what would that mean for the future,” Hatch said.
She was concerned for their behalf and it was not easy knowing she had nothing in my control to help them or the situation when it was happening.
Some families did have the chance to evacute before Irma hit land.
Senior Sapphire Rush’s family did have the oppurtinity and choice to leave. Rush explains how her grandmother left everything behind to save herself.
Rush’s family was orginally from Southern New Jersey but over the years they seperated.
Her grandmother moved to the Miami area in Florida. When her family found out about the hurricane, her grandmother immediately dropped everything and went back to New Jersey, yet she left all of her belongings and her dog.
“My grandmother went back to Florida after the storm was over to find her backyard completely ruined, her basement flooded and her home falling apart,” Rush said.
Her grandmother had to leave her dog behind because she could not find a plane that could transport her dog with her, the dog was then left at a doggy hotel in Florida.
When her grandmother came back after Irma, she tried to contact the hotel her dog was located at but heard nothing.
“The doggy hotel the dog was placed in never notified if the dogs were okay or anything, so to this day we do not know if he is even okay,” Rush said.
Rush does have other family besides her grandmother that does live in Florida but did not have the chance to leave before Irma. It’s hard to go through something this devestating to know that your family is out there, possibly injured or dead.
Having no way to contact your family because the phone lines and eletricity are damaged. “We do have other family in Florida, a few cousins or so but we haven’t heard from them and have no clue if they’re even okay,” Rush said.“Cellphones are not ringing at all and no social media posts have been posted, but we are trying not to expect the worst.”
Florida was the last place to be severly hit with the Catergory 4 beast. Other territories such as Puerto Rico. Janice Milian Guerrero has family in Puerto Rico who experienced strong wings, flooding, and power outages.
Puerto Rico was next to the Virgin Islands which was strongly impacted by Irma. Knowing the conditions of other islands worried Guerrero more than she expected.
“I was worried about them during the hurricane because of how most of the house foundationds they live in were found,” Guerrero said.
At one point, Guerrero couldn’t get in touch with her family. “But now I am actually scared and stressed because I’m not able to communicate with them at all,” Guerrero said.
Irma is not the only hurricane that has hit Puerto Rico lately, hurricane Maria has left 100 percent of this small territory without power and allowing no one to be able to get in contact with them.