After the Hurricane: Upheaval and Renewal
By Philip Walzer
In the last two months, Hurricanes Florence and Michael have caused Hampton Roads discomfort but little destruction.
Here are the stories of four Old Dominion employees and alumni who were less fortunate. They or their families faced hurricanes head-on and encountered dislocation, death, kindness and renewal.
'A broken man whose world crumbled'
Joshua Behr works as a research associate professor with ODU's Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center. He focuses on preparing for and recovering from severe storms.
The subject has painful relevance for Behr. Maybe the cause wasn't direct and the effect wasn't immediate, but Behr believes Hurricane Katrina killed his father-in-law in Louisiana.
"His world fell apart," Behr said. "He was a broken man. Everything he believed was shaken to the core."
Richard Steiner was a lawyer and temporary judge - "a self-made man who was very sure of himself," Behr said. "He knew how to get things done. He was part of the old boys' network for decades."
Steiner's wife left for Hampton Roads before the hurricane, but he stayed, saying, "I've been through this my whole life." Their house didn't flood, but with communications knocked out, his relatives couldn't reach him for weeks.
The first update came from a farmer south of Baton Rouge. He had found Steiner, who had diabetes, wandering the parking lot of a Walmart, filthy, disheveled and dazed. Steiner had been driving his Jeep, hooked to a travel trailer loaded with garage tools.
The farmer towed the trailer to his farmhouse, where Steiner stayed for about three months. "We had conversations with him, but he was mostly out of it," Behr said.
Eventually, Steiner's wife returned and they moved back to their house in Gretna, a suburb of New Orleans. "Some days he was more lucid," Behr said, but his mobility and cognitive functions worsened. He spent his last couple of years bedridden and died in 2012.
Cases such as Steiner's "are not captured in many of the 'official' Katrina stories," Behr said. "But we know that our family story is far from unique."
Takeaways: Behr said the tragedy "intensely shaped" how he approaches the modeling of hurricane recovery in Hampton Roads.
"We are taught that you're supposed to start with broad theory and develop specific hypotheses that you want to test. That's the official line. The reality is, we also draw upon our real-life experiences and anecdotal information."
He's also learned that "very few things are textbook black and white. This is even more true in research."
Listen to Behr on the Virginia public radio program "With Good Reason" at https://www.withgoodreasonradio.org/episode/free-the-beaches/
Starting over with new home and career
During Hurricane Irma, Amanda Rivera "could actually see the glass bending out" from the windows of her ninth-floor apartment in Old San Juan, said her sister Giovanna Genard, the assistant vice president for strategic communication and marketing at ODU. It didn't break, but Rivera's apartment later flooded.
She knew she couldn't stay there when Maria came. So Rivera and her husband, along with her father, encamped at the house of another sister, Cara Elisa Rivera.
After strong winds tore the roof off Cara's family room, they huddled on the floor of a first-story bedroom and prayed for most of the first day. For Genard, the worry stretched far longer, with communication to the island cut off. She found out three days after the storm hit that everyone was OK. But not entirely.
Worried about the well-being of her father, Juan Rivera, Genard found him a flight to Orlando a week after Maria. He later joined his wife, Ilka, who was with four other daughters in California.
Genard's parents returned to Puerto Rico in mid-February after water and electricity were restored. Her father had lost 30 pounds and was overwhelmed with anxiety. A doctor diagnosed him with PTSD, but he is "much, much better now," Genard said.
Amanda and her husband, Jasen Colón, had to find new jobs. The Mercedes dealership where Amanda worked was severely damaged, and buying a car became a low priority for Puerto Ricans.
Though they loved Puerto Rico, the Colóns moved to Hampton Roads in October, finding work at local dealerships. But in July Amanda quit to focus on her dream of designing jewelry. She realized, Genard said, that "life was too short."
Takeaways: Maria elevated the resilience of relatives and other Puerto Ricans, Genard said.
Amanda waited in line for seven hours for fuel. Cara's husband, Josué, siphoned gas with his mouth to help a neighbor fuel a generator. Families cooked what food they had - plantains, rice, meat - on a grill and shared a collective meal. But desperation led to less charitable actions - siphoning gas from cars and looting homes, including apartments in Amanda's building.
Her family's experience shaped Genard's approach to Florence.
She stayed at a hotel near ODU to help coordinate updates. Among other items, she brought a plastic tarp, life vest, battery-powered LED lanterns, duct tape, cans of tuna and chicken and several gallons of water. "I wanted to be self-reliant and able to help others," she said.
She found new job and new focus
Angela East Kean '96 moved to Saint Croix in the Virgin Islands 11 days after she graduated, thinking it would be a short-term adventure. She never left. Kean has worked as a director of an investment banking firm, controller of the company that produces Cruzan Rum and director of a physical therapy clinic.
Hurricane Irma delivered a glancing blow to the island. Then came Maria. The storm lingered over St. Croix for eight hours, devastating the island. But "I can't complain," she said. "People lost everything. Some still don't have roofs. We're a lot better off."
She and her family boarded up the windows of the bottom floor of their condo and stayed with friends on the east end of the island. During the most intense part of the storm, they couldn't get the front door there to latch, "and it slammed open and shut for a good six hours." They didn't return to their condo until a month and a half later, when power was restored.
The physical therapy clinic closed, leaving Kean without a job. She volunteered with the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency.
"It's very different from Florida or Texas. It could be months before resources flow in. You have to envision everything being inaccessible. There were power lines on the road. All the cash you have was what you had before the storm. The landscape is unrecognizable. Everything on the ground looked brown because it was burnt from the intensity of the wind."
Takeaways: "This experience makes you realize how much you take for granted, the simple flip of a light switch or turning on running water." And the importance of community.
"There was no one to turn to except for each other. The citizens were the ones who cleared the road so people could get through."
While she volunteered with VITEMA, she met the owner of Gallows Bay Hardware. "I was moved by her resilience. Two days after the storm, they were open for business to help people, even though the phones and computers weren't working."
Kean joined the hardware store as operations manager in November. "Now I'm dedicating my life to preparing for storms and surviving storms."
Recovering 'poco a poco'
Jeanne Walker Sinclair '98 is a former member and assistant coach of Old Dominion's sailing team. Since 2007, she has lived in Rincon on Puerto Rico's west coast: "It's a little pocket of paradise. It has 15,000 people. There are only stop signs and yield signs. People still ride horses in town."
She owns Rincon Sailing, which provides lessons, tours and camps to locals and tourists. The boats were carefully secured and escaped damage from Hurricane Maria last year. But her family's house was flooded, ruining much of the furniture.
Rincon Sailing took a big hit because people "were in survival mode, not thinking about sailing," after the hurricane, she said. Sinclair and her husband have dipped heavily into savings to get by.
They didn't replace their three employees, who left Puerto Rico after Maria, and they've downsized their fleet from 25 to 17 boats. "We're getting rid of the equipment we're not using to be more agile," she said.
They're focusing more on lessons, but they recently started a side venture, Island Leisure Project, to offer personalized sailing vacations in the Caribbean.
"The business is evolving. I had thought we would be doing one trip a month, but Maria put a hold on that. A lot of people are really excited to do something with us in 2019."
Takeaways: "Electricity is a luxury. What's most important - food, water, shelter and cash. Nothing prepares you for weeks of being out of communication with family.
After the storm, "there were long lines everywhere," she said. "Banking or getting fuel took hours. Most of the purchases were cash-only. Food and water were sparse." But "everybody helped each other - clearing up debris, sharing food or fuel, or just being there for one another."
They moved to Connecticut for three months while the island was rebuilding. Next time, they'll leave only if their lives are at stake. "Leaving slowed our personal recovery timeline," she said.
"Many on the island say, 'poco a poco,' little by little, and that's what we're doing. We're moving forward with our business plans and raising our family here. We'll just ride it out and see how it goes."