Magic broadcaster finally learns family survived storm
Text messages from aunts, uncles and cousins in Puerto Rico poured into Joey Colón’s cell phone as Hurricane Maria started to bombard the island. Yeah, we’re feeling the winds. The winds are very strong right now.
The house is shaking. Then ... silence. At 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 20, as the Category 4 storm battered his hometown, the messages suddenly stopped. Colón, the playby-play man for the Orlando Magic’s Spanish-language broadcasts, hadn’t heard from his family in Puerto Rico since.
On Tuesday night, after almost a week of fearing that family members had died, Colón finally heard from a friend that his relatives survived. The hurricane destroyed their homes, but at least they’re alive.
“That was seven days of agony,” Colón said Wednesday. “I’m a believer in God. I never prayed so much.”
Maria throttled the island with winds up to 155 mph, leaving destruction in her wake. Among the hardest hit areas was Guayama, the city along the southern coast where Colón was raised.
Hours after Colón lost contact with his family, CNN aired a video that horrified him. The Guamaní River had flooded the neighborhood where many of his relatives still live, engulfing entire homes.
Colón felt like he had been kicked in the stomach.
Watching the brown water rushing over buildings made him fear the worst. Many of his relatives had planned to ride out the storm in their houses, and Colón worried the river had swept them away. He cried. “I thought they were dead,” Colón said. “I thought I had lost all my family.”
In that sense, Colón was no different than many Puerto Ricans who live in Central Florida: Communications outages caused by the storm made it nearly impossible to contact relatives on the island.
Last weekend, unable to reach Guayama, Colón pitched in on a relief effort headquartered at the Engelwood Neighborhood Center. People donated water, baby formula, batteries — anything that could be sent to Puerto Rico and ease the suffering of the island’s 3.4 million residents. Colón and others worked until 1 a.m. Monday to package the contributions for shipment.
A few hours later, he attended the Magic’s annual media day at Amway Center. He hoped that going to work would temporarily take his mind off his problems, perhaps for just a few hours.
Magic employees already knew about Colón’s plight. The team’s broadcast crew — a group that includes TV play-by-play man David Steele, TV analyst Jeff Turner, sideline reporter Dante Marchitelli and radio play-by-play man Dennis Neumann — are tightly knit. During Magic road trips, for example, they often eat together.
His fellow broadcasters adore Colón. When Fox Sports Florida television cameras flash to Colón during the first halves of games, he often taps his chest, waves and smiles to the viewing audience.
That’s Colón’s personality: bubbly, always positive.
But at media day, Colón just wasn’t himself — and for good reason.
“He was downtrodden,” Steele said. “You could just see the look of concern on his face. The light wasn’t there. The Joey Colón that we know and love was preoccupied, understandably, with thoughts of his family.”
Magic players Aaron Gordon and Nikola Vucevic asked Colón if his family was OK.
About 36 hours later, Colón finally received welcome news.
A friend in Puerto Rico visited Guayama, where he ran into one of Colón’s uncles and one of Colón’s aunts.
They informed the friend that everyone was safe. The friend, in turn, relayed the news to Colón.
Around dinnertime Tuesday, Colón sent a group text message to his fellow Magic employees to tell them his family was safe.
And now, Colón is focused on helping the island rebuild.
This weekend, he will attend a relief drive based at a pair of Orlando locations.
“We can move on from this,” Colón said. “We can rebuild. We can help them come back to their feet.”