{"id":1622,"date":"2017-09-24T19:04:07","date_gmt":"2017-09-24T23:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/normpyle.com\/2017\/09\/24\/blown-off-course\/"},"modified":"2019-08-31T16:37:02","modified_gmt":"2019-08-31T20:37:02","slug":"blown-off-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kneedeepinit.com\/blown-off-course\/","title":{"rendered":"Blown off Course"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes life throws you a curveball.  And sometimes that curveball goes around and around in a big circle at 175 mph.  We actually got a couple of them, named Irma and Mar\u00eda, and as bad as Irma was for many places (including our new home state of Florida), Mar\u00eda was the one that forced us to change our plans.  She carved her way along the southern coast of Vieques and then plowed straight through the mainland of Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"Hurricane\n\t\tMaria’s approach from the SE. PR is in upper left, Vieques is the long skinny unlabeled island near it\n\t

Both of those landfalls by Mar\u00eda were problematic for us. The first one obviously for the direct damage it caused to power, internet, water, and the buildings on Vieques (esp. wooden structures).  Our rental house is concrete, but we still have not seen pictures or a damage report. But if a big enough tree falls on your house and opens up the roof to 2 feet of rain, then lots of bad things can happen no matter what the wall structure is.  But really at this point we’re expecting the house to be OK, with some cleanup and repair work. We would love to be there, to help with the hard work ahead around the island, but we have been told repeatedly “don’t come”.  We just can’t help at this point – maybe later.  Some better news though: to date, we know of no lives lost on Vieques, gracias a Dios!<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"Large\n\t\tVieques – can’t get to the beach this way!\n\t

The damage done on the mainland (yes, the small-islanders call it the mainland) was much worse, with intense structure damage, power outages, communications wiped out, and massive flooding. It was the most powerful storm to hit PR since the 1930’s.  Accurate numbers are hard to get, but the death toll is over 20 people so far, and it will climb. Now there’s even a risk of a huge dam failure which could make things much worse for our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico. Thousands of people may be displaced because of that, or gamble their own lives. Desperation is setting in for many, and it may get much worse before it gets better.  And without the mainland to help, little Vieques will have to fend for itself for a while.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\"Man\n\t\tIn mainland PR, flooding made things much worse\n\t

So with that backdrop, our inconveniences pale in comparison and I’ll try to respect that. But after years of planning, research, emails, learning Spanish, befriending people, donating to worthy causes, etc. on Vieques, we’re going somewhere else for a while.  If we were to go to Vieques now, we would instantly be adding to the victim count, with no water, food, electricity, etc.  We know they will recover, we know Vieques will be better than ever, but we have to let them do their work before we show up and make things worse.  Just restoring water and power would be a nice start for all.<\/p>\n

For us, this is no problem – we have all sorts of options, right?  We sold all our stuff, all we have to do is pick another destination in the Caribbean (we got Caribbean souls we can barely control) and go there, right?  OK, so let’s try:<\/p>\n