State Rep. Crespo on family in Puerto Rico in Irma's path: 'We pray a lot'
Democratic state Rep. Fred Crespo of Hoffman Estates, along with his parents and siblings who still live in Puerto Rico, have long considered 1989's Hurricane Hugo the most destructive storm they've known over decades on the island territory.
But Hugo was a Category 3, while Hurricane Irma was estimated as a Category 5 as it was poised to strike Puerto Rico Wednesday.
"My family is less than 5 miles from the coast on the northeast part of the island," Crespo said Wednesday afternoon. "We're a very Christian family so we pray a lot. ... They're confident they're going to be OK and I hope that's the case."
The area had already lost power as winds picked up in the late afternoon, but the family's own generator was working.
Crespo was born in Chicago and raised in Puerto Rico. His elderly parents along with a brother and two sisters still live in the U.S. territory.
Crespo had already left the island for Illinois when Hurricane Hugo struck, but he returned to help his family recover.
"I remember the devastation," he said. "Huge trees I remembered as a kid just uprooted."
Now, like then, he's most concerned about the hurricane's aftermath. Back in 1989, Puerto Rico suffered a long-running power outage after the hurricane.
Drownings and electrocutions were also discovered in the wake of Hugo.
Today, the island's aging and neglected utility infrastructure was in worse shape before Irma than it was before Hugo, Crespo said.
But life on a Caribbean island has prepared its residents with the know-how they need right now, Crespo said. His family spent the days before Irma boarding up windows and getting basic supplies like water.
"My family feel pretty well protected in their homes," Crespo said. "The homes there are made of concrete. They're not like here."
While some things have gotten worse since Hugo, there are also improvements that will likely help residents and their concerned families far away, Crespo said.
There was no social media in the '80s for instance, and phone communication depended on landlines that were taken down by the storm.
Warning systems are much more advanced than years ago, when a change in the wind was about as much notice as people got.
With residents themselves having completed their preparations, the hurricane itself is the final variable.
"It's always the intensity and the frequency," Crespo said, hoping Irma would pass by quickly.
But even with improvements in communication, it's probably the relatives who live far away that worry the most, without the ability to assure themselves everything that could possibly be done has been, Crespo said.