Hurricane special

VOICE OF THE WILDCATS

OCTOBER 2016

HURRICANE MATTHEW SPECIAL

Above, Hurricane Matthew, packing 97 mph winds, battered the Daytona Beach oceanfront.

Hurricane Matthew, a category 3 storm, battered Volusia County on Oct. 7. Daytona Beach was one of the areas that was hardest hit.

Damages to B-CU’s campus were limited to downed trees and several twisted fences.

Storm Stories

By Augustinas Navickas

Downed tree in front of Lee Rhyant Residential Hall.

photos by Gino Cyrus

“I come from Lithuania, a country where a hurricane has never occurred before. When I first heard that Hurricane Matthew will be hitting Daytona, I had to research what a hurricane really is. I knew it’s some sort of a disaster, like a tsunami or a tornado.

“Once I learned what is coming, I quickly did my resident assistant duty and informed everyone in my residence hall that an evacuation will be taking place.

The next morning, I packed my belongings and headed to a safe zone close to Tampa.” top photo by Ca’Netta General

More Storm Stories

By Akeemia Clements “Once I got home (Miami) I was told Hurricane Matthew was going to hit Thursday morning. So, we immediately started putting up shutters and went grocery shopping.… We loaded up on a lot of water and food just in case the water went off and we had a lot of flashlights. We was all set for Matthew. …

“Once Thursday came it rained and we were watching the news (when) they were saying he was coming at 12 noon. Once the afternoon came we still had rain so everyone was confused.

So we watched the news again and it said that we were under a thunderstorm alert.”

photo by Brenda Starr

By Gino Cryus “Returning to Orlando, Florida was not the difficult part. However, what had been was finding a store near my residential area that still had packages of bottled water. I was even told by one of the employees at a Wal-Mart that they sold the next day’s supply of water they had stored.

“Luckily, Hurricane Matthew didn’t cause any damage to my community. Neither did my power go off. There was even an extension date on when students returned to school.”

By Lenyjha Dodd

photos by Zoelexis Proby

“After getting the news of how serious the storm has become I packed my bags and headed out first thing in the morning.

“Even though I was excited to go back home to Miami to family and high school friends, I was worried because the storm was changing every time I watched the news. I kept tabs on the news every couple hours.

“My family was well prepared. We got everything we could get. Stores were out of every single item. Especially water. Luckily my brother worked for a water company so water wasn’t an issue at all.”