The wrath of Irma
Karen Wolff, a resident of St. Maarten, shares her experience in the wake of the destruction
“We were actually pretty lucky – our house is still intact, minus the huge boat on our deck.” Karen Wolff
The upheaval of Hurricane Irma was a life-changing moment for Karen Wolff and her family, who lived in St. Maarten when the storm struck.
“I don’t think anyone could really prepare for exactly what Irma was going to bring,” said Wolff. When asked if she sees her family returning to the island country, she said, “that’s the million-dollar question. At this point, we don’t know. We don’t know how safe it is.”
With no running water and electricity – and minimal provisions, with most businesses and buildings levelled by the storm – St. Maarten does not look to be an especially hospitable place to pick up the pieces of life before Irma.
Wolff said her family’s home was largely spared Irma’s wrath – with the exception of a catamaran the furious winds and waters tossed onto their deck.
“We were actually pretty lucky – our house is still intact, minus the huge boat on our deck,” said Wolff. “But almost everyone we know lost everything.”
Wolff was forced to take refuge and eventually evacuate the island, with her husband, Sergio, and sons, Aiden, 5, and Jack, 2.
The Wolffs have been trying to get a clear plan for the future, after hurricane decimated much of the island’s infrastructure and forced them to evacuate to Canada.
“We’re not sure if it would be the right decision to go back,” said Wolff. “Life as we know it won’t be the same. There won’t be beach days on Sunday and swimming in the pool on Saturdays – it’ll be completely different, if we go back. We have to weigh a lot of decisions right now, and decide what’s best for our family and future.”
In the meantime, life has finally calmed down for the Wolffs, who are staying with extended family in Pictou County.
Life in Pictou County is a far cry from the chaos of Irma, when Wolff and the rest of her family weathered the category 5 hurricane at the Sonesta Maho – the hotel where her husband works, the largest in the Maho Beach area.
The solid concrete structure was deemed by authorities to be one of the safest potential refugees from Irma’s wrath – and even that building took extensive damage from the destructive winds.
“We had a plan to stay at the resort. They had hurricane shelters in place, so everyone felt prepared and ready,” said Wolff. “We checked in around lunch on Tuesday. Everyone was brought to the hurricane room from 7 to 9 p.m. – they felt safe.”
Their sense of safety remained until around 3 a.m., when “things started to pick up,” said Wolff, describing how the building was pounded by the heavy winds – a cacophony that reached its crescendo around 5:30 a.m., when the eye of the storm rolled in.
Although Wolff couldn’t see the full extent of the destruction until she and the rest of those taking shelter were allowed outside, Irma made her presence known by shaking loose ceiling tiles and flooding the building.
“There was a lot of flooding – we were on the second floor of the building and the water was ankle-deep, rushing in up to mid-calf at one point,” said Wolff.
At first, those taking shelter were separated into two safe rooms in the hotel – the adult guests in one room, and guests with children in another. The severity of the storm ended up forcing both groups to take shelter in one room – while the winds eventually ended up ripping the roof off the other purportedly safe room.
“The doors were blowing open, and in the moment it was scary, but we had to focus on everyone being safe – we focused on keeping the kids safe and that’s how we dealt with it,” said Wolff. “We tried to be strong and make sure the kids weren’t too scared. We couldn’t see outside, so we didn’t know how bad it truly was.”
That resilience was in the face of some terrifying feats of nature going on outside. While the eye of the storm passed over St. Maarten, winds in the violent wall around the eye reached sustained speeds of 185 mph – and gusting speeds of over 300 mph.
In addition to the raw power of the wind, Wolff noted that three tornados touched down in St. Maarten during the storm.
“We had no idea, and didn’t see until the next day,” said Wolff. Upon emerging to find 90 per cent of St. Maarten completely levelled, she said “everyone turned to survival mode – we weren’t guests at the hotel at that point. We pitched in to clear pathways, and prepare rooms that may have been livable.”
The next few days were spent cleaning up, salvaging and preparing to evacuate the island – something that deeply saddened Wolff, whose family called the island home.
Wolff said, “It’s a great community, and a great place to be with your family. To think of all those people there with no other options, no running water and no power – it’s a dire situation for a lot of people. They’re going to start running out of basic things very quickly.”
Eventually, evacuees were sorted into priority groups and flown out by Sunwing Airlines – a process that ended up splitting Wolff’s family into two groups. While her husband and brotherin-law were in a later group to be evacuated, she and her sister-inlaw were evacuated with their children first, and brought to Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic.
“We waited in Punta Cana – there was a free flight to Toronto, and we were welcome to take it – but, because my husband and brother-in-law were going to be evacuated the next day, we waited for them,” said Wolff. “We organized our flights from Punta Canada ... so that we could come to Halifax.”
“Sunwing helped so much to get everyone out of the dire situation and back home,” said Wolff, noting that the airline brought guests to the Dominican Republic, and eventually back to Toronto in a series of evacuation flights.
Although there were plenty of helpful, good people who rose to the occasion in the aftermath of Irma, Wolff said some were some less scrupulous, with looters coming out of the woodwork to take advantage of the chaos.
“Some people look at these disasters as an opportunity. Not everyone was doing that. Most people were helping others, assisting and making sure their neighbours were OK,” said Wolff. “It’s a small community so people come together to look after each other.”
Wolff said the Dutch Marines were tasked with keeping order, making sure the evacuation and cleanup went on securely and safely. While the evacuation went on, she noted that security was tight.
“There was a military presence at the airport – the police escorted us to the airport, and the military was around as they checked passports and the manifest,” said Wolff. “It was a hectic scene at the airport.”
Wolff described the mood in the wake of Irma as “devastating, that would be a good description of how it feels. Because life as we know it no longer exists.”
She is still trying to come to terms with what happened – experiencing nightmares and flashbacks. She’s certain those will eventually subside – before she makes any decision on what to do next.
“We have a lot of decisions to make, and don’t have a lot of information, yet. We don’t know if we should build again, what the state of the island is, how our friends are, or how the rest of the people there are,” said Wolff. “Sorting through that is our first priority –taking things one day at a time is the best way to figure out how to proceed.”