“We spent the whole night in my mom’s room because the hurricane was too loud and the windows were about to burst out,” senior Diego Castro said. “My neighbor had to go inside his bathroom because his windows weren’t protected.”
Castro and his mom, Samantha, are two of the many Puerto Ricans who fled to the mainland United States after Hurricane Maria, a category 4 hurricane, made landfall on the island Sept. 20. According to CNN Money, approximately $45 to $95 billion in damage and a death toll of 51 was left behind by the hurricane after it hit Puerto Rico. Much of the island’s 3.4 million population was left without power or cell phone service.
“[We moved here] because we don’t have anywhere else to go, and my school basically got destroyed,” Castro said.
According to Castro, even tasks like getting gas or driving became extremely difficult.
“It was horrible,” Castro said. “The gas, it was like five to nine hours just to get a little canister of gasoline, and the [traffic] lights, people would just drive through there. Like if you were walking down the street, you would have a 60 percent chance of getting run over by a car, because they don’t really care about the lights. There were some cops [directing] traffic, but after they did their time, they just walked away and didn’t care.”
Castro and his mom came to North Carolina from their hometown of Gurabo, Puerto Rico, to live with his cousins, senior Gabe Soto and sophomore Axel Soto. Castro is now a student at Northwood as well and will graduate with the class of 2018.
“At first I was scared, because [my family] didn’t have service, so they couldn’t call us and let us know they were okay,” Gabe said. “I wasn’t really expecting that much damage, and all of the reports made it seem really bad, like there was no power, and I was really worried.”
Axel was less informed on the damage left behind by the hurricane; therefore, he was more indifferent to the situation.
“Honestly, part of me wanted to care, but then my real part of me thought I would care more,” Axel said. “I kind of just lived life on as usual. I was just at home playing and talking to my friends. I couldn’t even tell what was happening.”
Despite his initial reaction, after spending more time with Castro, Axel ended up being glad that his family came to North Carolina.
“I didn’t know what to think,” Axel said. “I wanted to be happy, you know, because here they have a better life. Over there, there aren’t the jobs [that we have], they don’t pay that well. But then, if they came over here, that means we wouldn’t go over [to Puerto Rico] as much. So I kind of didn’t want them to come, just so I could enjoy more time [in Puerto Rico], despite them being in bad conditions. At the same time, I wanted them to be happy and be over here with us. I’m glad they came now, though.”
Gabe was also happy that Castro and his mom came to live with his family here, and he has made efforts to make the move easier for Castro.
“I toured him around the school first off, and I gave him a bunch of tips on how life is over here,” Gabe said. “I explained things to him and introduced him to my friends and other people.”
Castro is less confident in his transition, but confirms he is becoming accustomed to life here. Castro says the change from his old school of roughly 300 students to Northwood’s population of about 1,400 students is one of the most notable differences.
“It’s pretty hard, but slowly I’ll get there in time, even though there’s only one year left,” Castro said.
Despite starting his life over in North Carolina, Castro recounts what life was like for him and other residents of the island immediately post-hurricane.
“It was pretty boring [after the hurricane hit], because there is no power, no signal—there is basically nothing,” Castro said. “All you can do is just sit in your house and wait and play board games. That’s all, nothing else.”
Castro and his family prepared for the storm, but it was more destructive than they imagined.
“We did get prepared, but we weren’t expecting that much damage from a hurricane,” Castro said. “The other thing is that the big companies like AT&T and all that didn’t prepare for it, so all of the communications just dropped.”
As a result, even more dangerous situations stemmed from the chaos.
“We were at this gas station, and there was this Chinese restaurant behind it, and the Chinese guy decided to fuel the [generator] while it was on, so it just caught fire and the whole restaurant [did too],” Castro said. “The cops moved the line out because there was a chance [the gas station] was going to explode. Then they just restarted giving out gas and then the people right in front of [the line] ended up in the back so they started arguing. When you’re in the end of the line, and then it’s your turn, it’s like, ‘Oh, we ran out of gasoline—too bad.’”
Although the move has been difficult at times, Castro and his family moved to North Carolina to live a better life, and a collateral effect of that has been a closer bond with his family.
“We were pretty tight,” Gabe said. “Especially when we were kids, we would always hang out. Whenever we went [to Puerto Rico] for Christmas, we would always hang out, because we’re a close family. We would have fireworks, mess around and make movies. Now we’re closer, because we spend a lot more time together.”
Castro is thankful for his family here.
“It is beneficial [to have my cousins], because if they weren’t here, we would have nowhere to go,” Castro said. “If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t be here.”
– By Chloe Maynard
