As a van carried a group of Mill Creek teenagers away from Mexico’s coastline, they watched helplessly as local residents gathered along the road, trying to flag down rides as Hurricane Emily heralded her approach.
“There was a big, huge gray cloud on our left, and it moved in on us and started pouring buckets of rain,” recalled Garrett Young, 19, speaking by phone July 18. “The thunder started going, it was right above us and incredibly loud, booming. There was lightning all over the place, every few seconds.
“I was thinking, ‘This is just a normal storm. What’s the hurricane going to be like?’”
The group, which had been building a cafeteria for a church in the coastal village of Chelem, never found out, as Emily shifted direction and spared the region that they were in of any heavy damage.
The nine teenagers and four adults from North Creek Presbyterian Church in Mill Creek evacuated from Chelem on July 16 and barricaded themselves in a house in Merida, the Yucatan state capital, about an hour to the south.
They set their alarms for 5 a.m. Monday, July 18 when the hurricane’s worst was expected to hit. But with Emily weakened to a Category 2 and its eye 9 miles off, winds clipped through Merida at a more-modest 45 mph.
That’s a relief to the nonprofit group the teens are working with.
Yucatan Helping Hands primarily rebuilds houses for some of the 40,000 people still homeless after Hurricane Isidore hit three years ago.
“It’s pretty exciting, especially when you have a hurricane come through,” said Byron Ahina, formerly of Shoreline, who started the ministry last year with his wife, Inze.
After staying indoors Monday under the local power company’s orders, the Mill Creek group was to help with a painting project and give Bible lessons to kids in a Merida suburb today before flying back Wednesday, July 20.
They had tried to get an earlier flight to escape the hurricane without luck, coordinator Pam Bickford said. “We’re feeling really blessed … because we were set for the worst.”
Melissa Slager is a reporter with The Herald in Everett.
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