Their vacay just blows
Hurricane Irma just won’t leave Gretchen and Peter Bogacz of Sarasota, Fla., alone.
Last week, the couple left their 12-year-old daughter, Isabella, with her grandparents and took a romantic trip to the five-square-mile Caribbean island of Saba to celebrate their 20th anniversary. Then Irma loomed. “They tried to fly home early when Irma appeared, but only got as far as St. Martin,” Gretchen’s sister, Natalie Grinnell of South Carolina, told The Post.
The couple landed in St. Martin Wednesday, but Irma followed them there, too, wrecking the island’s world-famous beachfront airport, where full-size jets would buzz in over the heads of sunbathers.
With no more flights in or out, the Bogaczes joined 6,000 other Americans stranded on St. Martin.
Repairs to the airport are ongoing, but only a few relief planes have managed to get in and out.
“We are OK,” the couple texted The Post Saturday night. “Food running low ... It’s like a war zone here,” they said.
“The looting is awful and things are getting more violent. We just want to get out. The US needs to help.”
The US military told The Washington Post Saturday that C-130 transport planes would work to evacuate trapped Americans — but oncoming Hurricane José might slow that effort.
The Bogaczes remain holed up in the Hotel L’Esplanade — where accommodations are lovely save for the lack of electricity and running water.
And once they do get out, Irma’s projected path up the Gulf Coast of Florida is barring their return to Sarasota. “We hope to fly Monday to Atlanta,” they wrote.