Winds are definitely picking up now. Blake, Colin, Eric, Kylie and I try to distract ourselves with hours of games. It worked for a while until the strength of the storm was unable to be ignored.

Power was shut off and cell service had been out since Irma. Eric’s phone is the only one in the house still receiving messages. I clung to that phone waiting for an update form someone telling me she’s weakening! We were told that about 2am the winds would shift south and would begin to notice some weakening. We lost use of his cell phone at midnight and she was just getting started. At 2am, I clung to the hope that she was weakening…but Maria was not backing down. We did not realize that she could get even stronger than she already was!

Blake was pacing back and forth holding the windows, putting down every towel in the house we had to stop the flooding that was occurring. I was moving from my bedroom to the living room and back trying to figure out which window was less likely to blow in on me.

When I say it was the longest night of my life– it’s no exaggeration! I watched every single minute tick by just waiting for the winds to calm down. She was fierce and unrelenting! It wasn’t until the sun came up that calmed down enough for us to poke our heads outside.

Our island looked totally different. We could see neighbors without roofs, more power lines down than up, trees snapped in half. It was nothing like I’d ever seen before. Our main concern was finding out if our family was okay! It’s about 4 miles or so to the condos they were staying in so we set off to find them.
The further we went the more shocking the scenes were.

When we were halfway to the condo we see 3 people walking towards us and it turned out to be my mom, dad and other brother! They were looking for us!

We continued our hike back with the family to their condo where they still had some of life’s luxuries; such as running water and cell service. We ended up actually having a really fun night. We went to another friends condo to charge phones and attend a little hurricane party. Most of the family attended and we were able to celebrate what we had just survived.

Tomorrow the new island rules start being enforced and the new reality would start to become apparent…but until then…we drink and celebrate life…cheers!