- Title: Couple defy Hurricane Maria on roof to save pets - lots of them
- Date: 26th September 2017
- Summary: YAUCO, PUERTO RICO (SEPTEMBER 25, 2017) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF LUCHETTI RIVER VARIOUS OF YAUCO RESIDENTS, SANDRA HARASIMOWICZ AND GARY ROSARIO, ON THE ROOF OF THEIR HOUSE WITH THEIR DOGS STREET COVERED WITH MUD (SOUNDBITE) (English) YAUCO RESIDENT, GARY ROSARIO, SAYING: "We usually climb (carry) all our dogs to the bunk bed, so we climbed (carried) all our seven dogs to the bunk bed and then eight cats we climbed them up to the kitchen cabinets all the way up top because the water was all the way up to here and I was carrying my dogs on my back and we was going back and forth back and forth back and forth… (inaudible) but then after that we stayed there on the first day of the hurricane." ROSARIO WITH HIS DOGS VARIOUS OF DEBRIS ON THE STREET HARASIMOWICZ AND ROSARIO WITH THEIR DOGS ON ROOF (SOUNDBITE) (English) YAUCO RESIDENT, GARY ROSARIO, SAYING: "With the dogs and the cats on the high cabinets up on the kitchen and the big dogs one by one and eventually my dogs were jumping in the water because they were in fear and plus the wind was blowing them off. It blew two of them in the back, I had to jump back to rescue two, to swim two back out from the back of the house. One was all the way over there across the street from the neighbor then when I come here another one would jump here so I said come out, the dogs are jumping down, so she came back so she could hold the dogs together so that the dogs could have some confidence and I jumped to get my other one and swam all the way back to the other one and then we climbed all the way to the roof to put the dogs there." MUD AND DEBRIS IN STREET VARIOUS OF POLICE OFFICER INSPECTING HOUSE CHILDREN'S DOLLS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) YAUCO POLICE OFFICER WHO WAS AMONGST THE FIRST AT THE SCENE AFTER THE HURRICANE HIT, WALDEMAR RAMIREZ, SAYING: "I consider how I can help citizens, to get them out from where they are, to save lives, to protect them. Today for the first time after so many long days I have come here to check what I have lost, what my daughters have lost. Clothes, damage that has been done here. The truth is it has not been easy to endure what I have endured." VARIOUS OF PEOPLE GIVING FOOD TO POLICE OFFICERS ON DUTY IN STREET (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) VOLUNTEER, MELODY RODRIGUEZ, SAYING: "We are from the Eat restaurant in San German and we are doing our bit, we are giving food to police whom we see from San German to Yauco." REPORTER ASKING: "Does it cost anything?" RODRIGUEZ: "It Is completely free. We want to help, to be part of the people who are volunteering to help Puerto Rico, adding our grain of sand." VARIOUS OF VOLUNTEERS GIVING FOOD TO POLICE
- Embargoed: 10th October 2017 07:59
- Keywords: Puerto Rico Maria aftermath Hurricane Maria stranded animals couple save animals
- Location: YAUCO, PUERTO RICO
- City: YAUCO, PUERTO RICO
- Country: Puerto Rico
- Topics: Disaster/Accidents,Wind/Hurricane/Typhoons/Tornadoes
- Reuters ID: LVA001708F6TJ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Hurricane Maria battered the quiet Puerto Rican outpost of Yauco and covered it with mud, but it couldn't separate Sandra Harasimowicz from her beloved pets.
She and her husband Gary Rosario said they clung to the side of a house for hours last week to save their seven dogs from the hurricane.
The storm reduced their picturesque neighborhood in Puerto Rico to a desolate mud pit.
Harasimowicz, 43, a native of Poland said the couple were trapped neck-deep in water after Hurricane Maria tore into their home in the southwestern town on Wednesday (September 20), sending them and their dogs scrambling onto a neighbor's roof to escape.
The storm has killed at least 10 people across the U.S. territory and turned the couple's street into bed of debris-strewn silt after a nearby river burst its banks. The surging flow entered their house.
Trying to keep the animals close in the hurricane while holding tight to solar panels on the neighbor's roof, one of the dogs jumped four times into the raging torrent that had swamped the street. Each time Rosario, who is Puerto Rican and a national guardsman, leapt in after the errant dog to haul it back to safety.
Rosario explained how they had earlier stashed their eight cats on top of the kitchen cupboards to ride out the storm when the floodwaters started rising to their chins. The couple had already sent their children, aged 6 and 12, to stay with a friend nearby before Maria struck. But after failing to find a refuge for the cats and dogs, the couple felt they should remain there with the animals, in part because they did not believe the storm would be so severe.
Maria knocked out power and telecommunications across the island of 3.4 million.
Harasimowicz and Rosario returned home on the night of September 20 when the flooding began to recede, spending the night on top of a bunk bed with their pets. But they were horrified as the waters began rising again.
Believing they had no choice in order to survive, the couple broke into a neighbor's house with a hammer so they could occupy its rooftop annex with their pets. By then, they had acquired another dog that had wandered up seeking shelter from the storm.
The couple have bathed and washed their clothes in rainwater collecting on the roof, and are now planning their next move. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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