Hurricanes Irma and Maria left behind horrible conditions in their paths through the Caribbean last month, and, in the case of  St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, everyone with Eastport area connections is safe, but a Quoddy Village resident is very worried about his family and friends in Puerto Rico.
     As of Friday, October 6, 15 boxes of much-needed basic supplies had been mailed out of Eastport to the main post office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where there are people waiting to distribute the contents to as many of the needy as possible. "What is happening to the island after the hurricane is really really hurting me a lot," says Puerto Rican native David Oja of Eastport of the reasoning behind his relief effort. "These are my family and friends, and these people are suffering. It's so sad for me when [at a time] when everyone should be loved, all of these horrible things are happening every day on the island."
     It took "too long" for Oja to hear back from his family after Hurricane Maria wiped out all communications across Puerto Rico, but he says, "I had an aunt who I was very very worried about. She had lost her husband from cancer last year. She lost part of her roof, and water got inside the house, but she is OK."
     "My sister was very sick before all of this happened, so that worried me," he adds. "I found out that she lost a lot of stuff, and I found out that my nieces and nephews are OK, but I still have one brother on the other side of the island where there is no communication at all, and I haven't heard from him."
     "This is very personal to me," Oja stresses. "Growing up on Puerto Rico, I know how painful this is for people there, so that's why I'm doing the project to get supplies to people there."
     "I'm very grateful to the people of Eastport who have helped me send out supplies home to my family and friends," he adds. "People need so many things there. Baby wipes. Candles. Pain relieving cream. Cat and dog food. Ladies' hygiene products. Hand sanitizer. Toilet tissues. Batteries. Flashlights. Candles."
     "My campaign has been to not send money to an organization, but I believe person-to-person contact is best," sums up Oja. "My brother-in-law works at the post office in San Juan, and my niece is a social worker, so I trust that when they get all of these supplies they will do the right thing, and I don't even care about the cost of how much it is to mail the supplies."

Islands devastated
     Following the path of Hurricane Irma through the Caribbean on September 6, the U.S. Virgin Islands no longer look like paradise and have been described as war zones. Leaves have been stripped from trees, fallen utility poles block roads, people sit in the heat outside their ravaged homes and helicopters bring supplies to the hardest hit island, St. John.
     The damage caused on St. Thomas from Hurricane Irma has led to the decision by Susan McFarland‑Helton, a hurricane survivor veteran, to move back home to Pembroke with her family for a year. Irma was the third hurricane to affect McFarland-Helton since she moved to St. Thomas on January 1, 1986, "and I am amazed by the destruction that took place in such a short amount of time," she stresses.
     Now 53 years old, she was among a group of University of Maine at Orono students working at the Bar Harbor Inn one summer and met someone who lived on St. Thomas in the winters and whose stories about the island caught the girls' imaginations. She also knew Kim Moholland from Eastport was on the island, and "I've known him forever," she recalls of the decision to fly down for a few months, which turned into 32 years.
     "We were living on St. Thomas when Hugo hit during the night in September of 1989, and that caused a lot of devastation," she recalls of the storm with 200‑mph winds and monsoon rains. "At the time, they said that there hadn't been anything that strong to hit the island in 80 years, and we had no power for a month."
     McFarland‑Helton was working for a phone company subsidiary at the time, and the lack of communication all over the island during the Hugo aftermath sped up the project to bring cell phone service to St. Thomas for emergency reasons. "I was their second employee, and we were incredibly busy," she reports.
     The landing of Hurricane Marilyn in September 1995, almost exactly seven years to the day that Hugo hit, also turned the world of St. Thomas residents upside down, recalls McFarland-Helton of the storm that caused a lot of damage from storm surge and heavy winds of over 100 mph, leaving 100,000 people homeless, including her.
     Susan and Glen Helton had married in 1999 and became parents to Taber in 2003, so when they heard about the path of Hurricane Irma last month, their main worry was making sure their son was safe. "This time when the storm hit, I am working for myself as a financial advisor with a 14‑year‑old son. I know that Internet and phone service is crucial for me, and I know what happens when our generator stopped," points out McFarland‑Helton, in describing the scenario leading up to the landing of Hurricane Irma.
     "This was the first time it wasn't completely dark when a hurricane hit," she adds for emphasis. "But a shutter outside the French door in our bedroom broke loose. It didn't stop banging all through the three or four hours of the storm, but the glass didn't break. I know a lot of other people had glass blowing out of their windows."
     "There were little pockets throughout the island where you could get cell phone service, and we [eventually] were able to call our family and say we were safe," she recalls.
     "It's really difficult to get out in a situation like that, especially with a cat and dog," stresses McFarland‑Helton, but her husband works aboard the 68' Gulf Rascal and, with the coordinated efforts of Ricky Newman, general manager of the Verdanza Hotel in Puerto Rico, brought supplies and FBI agents to St. Thomas "so, on the Tuesday after the storm, we went back with them."
     The family spent the next four days in Puerto Rico before escaping to the Dominican Republic and, finally, heading home to Maine.
     "Taber had been enrolled in a Montessori School and International Academy most of his life on St. Thomas, but now he has been enrolled at Washington Academy in East Machias, which is where I went to high school, so that was a deciding factor in coming home," stresses McFarland-Helton.

News from loved ones
     Friends and family of several Eastport area natives who are living in St. Thomas have heard that everyone is safe. Barbara Smith of Eastport, mother of 29-year-old Loretta Biss, says her daughter and boyfriend Brent Smith are doing well under the circumstances. "We talked to her before Hurricane Irma came through, but knew we might not be able to be in contact with her after Maria, and that's what happened."
     "When Loretta did get through, the noise on the other end of the phone was terrible, but I did hear 'safe,'" Smith was happy to report. "People were passing around what they could on Facebook and making sure word got around to as many people as possible as to who was OK."
     The couple are renting "a really solid apartment. It was like a bunker. They just had one broken window and some water, and the owner turns on the generator for a few hours each day for them."
Biss had just accepted a new job as a marketing manager for a liquor distributor, but "that got rescinded because of the conditions after the hurricane," reports Smith. "Brent had been working at the Marriott, which won't open until February, so they are both working bartending jobs for now."
"I think they both want to stay," adds Smith. "It's been home for Loretta for seven years."
Holly MacNichol of Perry was very happy to receive a telephone call from older brother Kim Moholland after the hurricane devastation to St. Thomas. "It brought tears to my eyes when I finally heard his voice."
     "It was very nerve-racking," she stresses. "We had been trying to contact him any way possible for three days after the hurricane. We tried Facebook, asking if anyone had seen him and then heard that Kim and a friend had been in an accident and needed medical attention," says MacNichol. "Then it turned out that, when I could finally get through to him by phone, he was in a doctor's office, which freaked me out, but it was because his friend Cary broke his arm. Kim was OK."
     Moholland has been living for over 30 years on St. Thomas, where he runs a contracting business sending crews out to paint houses.
     "He has an upbeat attitude even though his generator quit, and he has to buy gallons of water so he can shower every morning," reports MacNichol. "He says right now it looks like a war zone. There are long lines for gas."
     "But that is his home to him now, and I think he is planning to stay."