Photo By Master Sgt. Victor Gardner | First Lieutenant Carlos Romero, disbursement officer with the 9th Financial Management...... read more read more
First Lieutenant Carlos Romero, disbursement officer with the 9th Financial Management Sustainment Unit, Special Troops Battalion, 1st Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade, and members of his unit were deployed to Honduras in support of financial missions in the area in September when several hurricanes began to devastate the Caribbean. Natural disasters often cause a great deal of structural damage to affected areas.
While on his mission, Romero’s wife, Wendelyn Mendez-Maldonado, their two children and his mother in law received news that her brother had passed away back in their hometown of Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Mendez-Maldonado, her mother and their children flew back to Puerto Rico to attend to the services and see other family matters on the island.
During this time Romero maintained constant contact with his family via social media as well as cell phone services. Shortly after Mendez-Maldonado’s brother’s funeral, Hurricane Irma touched down on Puerto Rico and caused infrastructure damage to the island. Romero briefly lost contact with his family during this time due to cell towers and other items not fully functioning on the island. The lieutenant didn’t panic, as he said this type of thing happens often during hurricane season.
After a week, communications from Puerto Rico to the world began to function once again. Unfortunately, Hurricane Maria was off the coast of the island by this time. This time when the natural disaster made landfall, it left the entire island without communications and electricity and with plenty of structural damage. Mendez-Maldonado could not reach out to her husband or anyone else. The island went dark and people around the world had no idea if their family members were safe, dead or alive for several days.
“Some people lost everything because of the river overflowing,” Mendez-Maldonado said. “A lot of people couldn’t get out (of their homes) because of the (fallen) trees and damage to the roads. There was this thing about gas. People became violent. They would watch you and when you finished (pumping gas) they would rob you.”
Romero says the last text message between he and his wife before Hurricane Maria hit was at 3 a.m.
“Do you have enough food for you and the babies?” Romero asked.
Mendez-Maldonado wrote back “yes.”
“I love you guys,” Romeo said. And with that he lost communication with his entire family in Puerto Rico.
Romero continued to do his duty in Honduras, disbursing funds through military channels to help people in all parts of that region. Though he could not make contact with his family, he had to prepare his team to return back to the states and finish out their mission.
Romero tried every day to reach someone in Puerto Rico and find out where his family was and how they were doing.
“The children would want to talk to their dad like they always did before the hurricane,” Mendez-Maldonado said. “It was hard because I could only show them pictures of him on my phone. On my son’s birthday my cousin noticed that she had one bar on her phone, so we started trying to text and call. The only place that had really good signal was 35 minutes away from where we lived, in the capital.”
Mendez-Maldonado’s cousin sent the text and she says Romero received the text five hours later. The two had not had contact for five days until this moment. Mendez-Maldonado said she and her cousin stayed in that one position all night waiting for a reply from Romero. He sent more than 20 replies but they never made it to the family until several days later.
Being in Honduras at the time, Romero was in a first responder position for these natural disasters.
“Being the first responders, I got to see the pictures of the island before she could see anything,” Romero said. “I was seeing everything. My biggest concern was for them to get out of the country because the airports were flooded and everything was a mess. I first wanted to know how many people were dead and it was one person. So at that moment I knew that my family was safe. My biggest concern at the time was I wasn’t gonna be able to tell her that her flight got canceled, or her flight got moved.”
Using a small hand-crank radio, Mendez-Maldonado says her uncle heard that the airport was running but people needed to call to check their flights.
“So my uncle, aunt and I decided to take the risk of driving to the airport not knowing if we are going to get stuck on the road or how we would get back,” Mendez-Maldonado said. “On the way there we start to get a few messages from Carlos saying that my flight had been moved and the time I needed to be there.”
Mendez-Maldonado said the plane was packed with people and animals coming back to the states. Once she landed in Atlanta, her phone began to buzz with all of the texts that Romero had sent days earlier. At this point Romero and his Soldiers had packed their bags and were headed back to Fort Riley. According to Romero, he and his family were initially going to arrive at the Manhattan Regional Airport in Manhattan, Kansas, on the same day.
“I ended up with an earlier flight to get back home but going through Kansas City,” Mendez-Maldonado said. “The problem was that no one told me that all of my luggage wouldn’t be coming with us. The car seats were in there so I have the kids on my lap and all of that.”
After a few hours wait, Mendez-Maldonado’s luggage arrived and she and her children finally made it home. She texted Romero to let him know that she was already back and that she would meet him at the airport when he arrived. The next day arrived and the family was reunited.
“I haven’t seen them for nine months,” Romero said. “I was so relieved, like ‘yes! They made it.’ My biggest concern was all these people at the airport standing and waiting in line for 72 hours just waiting on a flight out of Puerto Rico. I was just afraid that they wouldn’t make their flight. That’s all I kept seeing on the news. So when I saw them it was one of the best days of my life.”
A day that only got better when he heard from one member of his family in particular.
“My daughter didn’t talk when I left,” Romero said. “Now she’s there talking to me saying ‘papa, you’re here.’ She didn’t talk at all when I left. It was great. It was great. I was so happy.”
Romero wasn’t the only one relieved at the reunion.
“I saw him from a far and knew that we were safe,” Mendez-Maldonado said. “I needed him so much down there (in Puerto Rico). And I needed him for those nine months.”
| Date Taken: | 11.10.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 11.29.2017 11:00 |
| Story ID: | 256751 |
| Location: | FORT RILEY, KS, US |
| Hometown: | PUERTO RICO, N, BO |
| Hometown: | FORT RILEY, KS, US |
| Hometown: | WASHINGTON, DC, US |
| Web Views: | 751 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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