"It's taught me to be patient, to be humble and to be grateful": Puerto Rican evacuee thankful for family, health care

Huddling under the covers with her two children in Puerto Rico while violent wind and rain battered their home was just the first step in surviving Hurricane Maria, at least for Jennifer Melendez.

To come were weeks without power. Standing in lines for ice and groceries. Waiting hours for gas. Wondering if the medication for her son would continue to be available.


And finally, the decision to pack clothing for herself and her two sons, and evacuate to Virginia Beach to stay with her sister-in-law.

It's a decision that's easy to understand on an island where public health officials are seeing warning signs of a health crisis. The New York Times reports that more than 2,000 calls have overwhelmed an emergency hotline for crises maintained by the Puerto Rican health department, twice the normal number for that period, even though most residents still do not have working phones.

Portions of the population continue to struggle with loss of power, lack of potable water, and schools and businesses that are still not all up and running. Routine is hard to come by.

And routine is something Melendez's sons – Dylan Benabe, 8, and Edwin Benabe, 5 – depend on. This holiday season, Melendez finds herself giving thanks for things she never could have foreseen:

Coats for her sons, who have known only island temperatures. Relatives who opened the door to their home. And Beach Health Clinic for providing physicals so her sons can enroll in public school.

"It's taught me to be patient, to be humble and to be grateful," said Melendez, 34. "I had everything – I didn't have to ask for help. But I had to leave my house. I had to ask someone, 'Can I stay with you?' It's taught me to be grateful for everything I have received."

This day in early November, she is grateful to Beach Health Clinic, and nurse practitioner Jane Smith, who is giving her sons physicals so they can enroll in school.

Smith plays a game of Simon Says to get them to put their head back, then forward: "Simon says put your ear to your shoulder. Simon says put your ear to your other shoulder."


Beach Health Executive Director Susan Hellstrom said the Melendez family is among several evacuees from Puerto Rico the free clinic has treated in the past several weeks. The clinic also had patients who left Louisiana and Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina.

Sometimes their stay is temporary, other times permanent.

"They become part of our community. And when we see a need, we step up and fill it," Hellstrom said.

For Melendez, health care was one reason she felt she needed to evacuate. One of her sons needs medication for an attention deficit disorder, and she feared missing appointments and prescriptions.

"If it had just been me by myself, I would have been OK, but having kids made it harder. You get tired, physically and mentally."

Her husband, Salvador, works for the Tennessee Forest Service as a firefighter. He lives in barracks there, so that was not an option for the family. But they planned for Melendez and the boys to eventually relocate there, probably in May.


Hurricane Maria was not in the plans, but she barged in anyway, leaving Melendez to batten down the hatches on her own. She gathered the children into her bedroom after the power went out, and they huddled together while the hurricane ripped through the island. They kept telling her the noise was too loud and they couldn't sleep.

"You could feel the house vibrating every time the wind came through; it felt like the windows were going to be ripped out. They kept asking me what was happening. I explained it was the wind. That the house was cement and we would be OK as long as were inside. I told them, 'Don't worry, I am here and I won't let anything happen to you.' "

At one point, she had to crawl up on their roof to remove debris from the gutters to keep water from gushing into their home.

The day after the hurricane went through, people started coming out of their houses and surveying the destruction: "It was so, so sad."

Her house had survived except for some terra-cotta tiles, but huge swaths of a nearby forest were gone, and debris from homes was scattered throughout the neighborhood.

On Sept. 22, she drove 45 minutes looking for a place with cell phone reception. She hadn't spoken with her husband since the day before the hurricane struck. She had only 10 minutes before the reception went out again, but she caught him up on what was happening. He urged her to go to Virginia Beach to stay with his sister.

She wanted to stay home, hoping schools would be open soon to return a sense of normalcy for her children. But the aftermath proved difficult: Lines for gas up to four hours. Lines for money at the ATM machine. Lines to get ice. Because of the power outages, she had to figure out how much daylight she had outside of her work at the airport, and to use it wisely.

Neighbors helped one another with food. Her parents and brother also banded together to stretch food and supplies.

As weeks went by, her children missed more school and power was still spotty on the island. It would take days to find a doctor and pharmacy to fill her son's prescription. Melendez asked her government agency if she could transfer her job temporarily to the Norfolk airport: She could. She reached out to her sister-in-law, and by late October, they were living in Virginia Beach.

"I'm not going to say it's been easy, but there have been so many people who have been so nice and kind, and they have helped us."

Melendez is bilingual. Her sons speak Spanish and a little English. But they adjusted to school just fine.

"They said, 'We love it here. We like the school, and the kids are nice.' "

She gets a little tearful thinking about the family she left behind, her parents, her brother, aunts, cousins.

"I felt selfish. They are staying there, and they're going to struggle more because I'm not there to help. But they knew my leaving was not for me. It was for my kids."

Melendez feels fortunate both she and her husband have jobs, and family willing to take them in. She advises other evacuees not to be afraid to ask for help.

"When you're in your day-to-day world, your own little bubble, you take things for granted. Now I look deeper, and I have to be grateful for waking up. For taking a hot shower. Grateful for the help from people I meet every day."

Elizabeth Simpson, 757-222-5003, elizabethsimpson@pilotonline.com