Dear Family
I don’t even know where to start this week! First, we are so thankful we are safe and that
we have a roof over our heads. We still
have no power after five days going into the sixth. That has been really hard
because it is also the hottest time of the year. But in comparison with our neighbor islands,
we can’t complain.
First of all, let me describe Hurricane Irma. She hit the record books for the strongest
hurricane out of the Atlantic. When she
hit the Caribbean, she was a category 5.
For several days, we tracked her direction and scurried to prepare not
only ourselves, but many single sisters in the branch. Tuesday late afternoon, the streets emptied
and everyone hunkered down to wait it out.
We had an idea that we would be right outside the eye wall, but it was
always scary because hurricanes are so unreliable. Sometime during the night, the power went off
and we began to hear the winds. The winds blew, the skies were a strange gray
color and we waited and watched. It
didn’t ever get as bad as it might have although there were several gusts that
could have knocked us over. We tried to
video parts, but it just didn’t do justice to the noise it was making. By late Wednesday night it had blown by and
we just had the outer bands giving us some wind and rain.
There are many trees down on our island. Tons of power poles are down and wires are
laying across the roads in so many places.
The sand was washed off the beaches and now most of them are just bare
rock. Many of the bushes and trees on
the north side of the island are stripped of their leaves. All sorts of sea sponges, soft coral and sea
life are washed up on some of the beaches creating a terrible stink. We are assured mother nature will take care
of it all and the beaches will be back to normal, but it is hard to see how
that could happen, they are so changed.
On Thursday, everyone stayed hunkered down but the news
began to trickle in of the damage it had done to St. Thomas which is only 40
miles from us. We can see it on a clear
day. The eye wall hit St. Thomas and
Tortola which is British and right next to St. Thomas. Without power, it has
been hard to find out just how hard they were hit. Even though we don’t have power, the AT&T
lines weren’t damaged on our end of the island so we have been in communication
with our mission president. The bad news trickled in daily. Our mission president called Elder DeMille
and asked him to be zone leader and to get in touch with the branch president
on St. Thomas. When we finally reached
him, he said they needed food and water as the island had been destroyed.
Getting food and water to them is no easy feat. Everything has to pass through customs here
even though we are US territories.
Besides that, the coast guard is another barrier to reaching them. Also, FEMA and the Red Cross have their own
rules. It made it difficult to help our
sister branch there. Just this morning a
member of our branch presidency found someone who owns a boat and who has been
cleared to go to St. Thomas and he agreed to transport packages from our church
to the branch on St. Thomas. We arrived
at church, had sacrament meeting, and then just as Bro. Brigham did for the
saints in the Martin Wiley Handcart companies (in fact those exact words were
read to us) our branch president ended church and called us to rescue our
brothers and sisters on St. Thomas. We
left and headed to the stores. Everyone
donated as generously as possible. We
created about 50 hygiene kits. We fully loaded
up two SUVs and a pickup truck with food and headed to the boat dock where the
goods will be loaded onto the boat and head to St. Thomas early in the
morning. We hope and pray the branch
receives our food and love. The looting
and lawlessness is terrible. We have
heard stories of people even taking cell phones away from people as they
talk. Everyone is so desperate.
I wasn’t worried about going shopping on Sunday because we
all knew it was what we needed to do. I
was worried, however, about going in with missionary tags on, that someone
would recognize the tag and it might cause some questions. When we got inside the store, we just kept
running into branch members in every aisle.
There was such a sweet spirit shopping in that store. It was an amazing feeling and we felt so good
about being there.
The shelves in our stores are getting really low. We are hoping that the hurricane doesn’t run
interference with the ships from Florida that should be coming to restock
us. There is not one hotel room
available as hundreds are fleeing to St. Croix trying to stay with family or
find a flight back to the states. The
dock that is just below our apartment is so busy that sometimes we can hardly
find our way out of our apartment. We
feel bad that most of the world doesn’t recognize the destruction here. Everyone is focused on more populated areas,
but this small part of the world sure does need some help.
I feel guilty with all the suffering on the other islands to
tell you how miserable it is here. We
are beyond roasted to death. We have no
hot water, but we enjoy the cold showers anyway. Our wash is so piled up that tomorrow we will
have to start washing things by hand.
Some places on the island have had their power come back on. There are business and restaurants open that
are run by generators. Everything is
really crowded and lines are long for fast food places. In preparation for the
hurricane we froze several ice cream buckets for ice. They kept our fridge cold until last night
when they gave way. We have to throw all
our food away. We have been eating
crackers and chips until we are sick of them.
We opened a can of soup and heated it on a little backpack burner we
purchased. We went out to dinner last
night which was a welcome relief. Every day we keep thinking it will be the day
when we get power back but after six days we don’t feel too hopeful.
I have told many of you that the missionary couple on St.
Thomas had to go home for a medical emergency.
The couple on Tortola had a family emergency and went home about ten
days before the hurricane. The couple on
Antigua (which was also badly hit), their time was up at the end of
August. The mission president was a
little frustrated because the church hadn’t sent him some couples to take their
place. Yesterday as dad and I were
driving around, we both had the feeling at the same time that those missionaries
had been protected and relocated. Dad
said that he felt like the apostles who preside over assigning mission calls
had really listened to Heavenly Father when they hadn’t assigned anyone to go
to Antigua right now. Could you just
imagine how hard that would have been to be a brand-new missionary couple on a
foreign island and a hurricane hits the week you get there? Dad and I can feel the Lord’s hand in the
events that got those missionaries off of their islands. We don’t know if the couple who went home for
a family death will be able to come back to Tortola or not. Recovery and getting power back will be a
long process.
Anyway, we are miserable and grateful all at once. Keep us in your prayers that we will not get
too discouraged. There is not anything
to be discouraged about, but we haven’t slept for six nights because it is too
hot and so we are exhausted and worn out completely. So far, I have only cried once, however! We are trying to have “hope smiling brightly
before us” and forget ourselves and help others. That helps during the day, but hardly keeps
us afloat during our long hot nights. We
tried to get a hotel room that had a generator or power, but they are all
filled to the brim with fleeing tourists.
We love you all. We are
grateful for the experiences we are having.
Can’t say I ever want to experience a hurricane ever again. Hugs and kisses to Lara and Ella celebrating
their birthdays tomorrow. Wish I could
be there to enjoy a dinner at Cheesecake Factory!
Love, love to all,
Dad and mom
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