Hurricane Hugo and High-Rise Helpers

When the weather report in September 1989 warned that Hurricane Hugo was heading for Puerto Rico, I heard several people laugh it off and say, “Oh, hurricanes never hit Puerto Rico.” After all, it had been thirty years since a hurricane had struck the island. Still, I had a strong feeling that this one would come ashore.

Unfortunately, I was right. In a few days, Hurricane Hugo crashed into the northern tip of the island of Puerto Rico with devastating force. In San Juan, where we were located, the winds roared at 140 miles per hour for more than eight hours. I watched trees break like toothpicks and house roofs fly through the air. During the height of the storm, both our electricity and water were knocked out.

We had gone inland during the actual storm, but when the winds subsided, we were allowed to go back to our home one mile from the ocean. It was a humbling sight. The whole area looked as though it had been bombed. Trees and power lines were down, buildings were smashed, cars had been overturned, and broken glass and debris were everywhere. However, we were lucky. Our home was still standing and had received only minor damage.

To my surprise, the aftermath of the storm was harder to live through than the actual storm. We were without electricity or water for two weeks—and some parts of the island were without electricity or water for more than two months. This became a real test of our preparedness, and it became an opportunity to see if our family could learn to handle our emotions and control our tempers, with the oppressive heat and humidity adding to the difficulty of these trying conditions.

Since my husband and I have both taught several emergency preparedness classes, as well as being emergency medical technicians, we had plenty of canned food, bottled water, and first-aid supplies to get us through the crisis without any problem. Since the manufacture and shipment of food was greatly hindered for several weeks, many people did not have even the necessities of life, so robberies and other crimes accelerated. We, however, had enough to share with others.

For example, since there was no electricity and we didn’t want to lose all of the meat in our freezer, we had a neighborhood barbecue. That turned out to be a good opportunity for us to share the gospel, since many of our neighbors asked why we had stored so much food. After the barbecue, our next-door neighbors offered to let us use the water from their outdoor pool to flush our toilets. We were then able to use our stored water for drinking and washing. We learned that you can never have too much water.

We found it was important to have the scriptures to read and a portable tape recorder with extra batteries. Finding entertainment through listening to tapes and reading made it much easier to cope with the crisis emotionally.

Our portable AM/FM radio kept us updated on the hurricane and then on the situation in the weeks after the hurricane hit. During this time, I shed many tears and felt great heartache for the thousands of desperate, destitute people on the island. After a week of listening to their cries for help, especially the pleas of the elderly and infirm who lived in high-rise buildings, I thought it would be a good idea to let my children become involved in helping those in need. We still had quite a bit of extra food, water, and clothes, so one afternoon, my eight-year-old daughter and I prepared backpacks full of clothes and food. My husband and my seven-year-old son took them and hiked up twenty-two steep, narrow, poorly lit flights of stairs to help a young family with small children. Then my husband and son came all the way back down the twenty-two flights of stairs and went right back up again, carrying a five-gallon container of water.

For the next few weeks, the children and I listened to the pleas for help every afternoon on the radio. Then we delivered food, water, clothes, and first-aid supplies to people who had called for help and seemed particularly desperate or vulnerable. Almost every day we hiked a minimum of ten flights of stairs carrying loaded backpacks.

We met many interesting people, including an 82-year-old Russian woman who had worked in a circus as a child. She lived on the fifteenth floor of a high-rise building that was without water, electricity, or telephone service. She had sent a note with someone to make a phone call for her—to request help. We hiked up and down the fifteen stories six times before we finished helping her. When she said she couldn’t believe that there were people in the world who were willing to help others without expecting to be paid, I told her that we were prepared to help others because of the gospel and the teachings of the Savior. She was impressed and wanted to hear more. We still keep in touch with her.

When my children heard that the orphanage had been partially destroyed, they immediately went to their rooms and pulled out clothes and toys to give to the orphans. We also prepared a box of food and included some candy, which during those trying times was hard to find.

What could have been a totally disastrous experience for all of us turned out to be a good exercise in learning patience, a test of our preparedness, and a great opportunity to live the gospel. We had enough to care for our own needs through the duration of the crisis, and we had extra to share. I know that the prophets speak by revelation when they admonish us to be prepared. I feel more urgency than ever to remain prepared with a year’s supply.