THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 12, 1995 TAG: 9509120269
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LARRY W. BROWN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
Steven and Helen Gingerella chose the quiet, romantic island of Antigua for their fifth wedding anniversary. Then Hurricane Luis chose the same Carribbean island to ravage.
Their vacation had just started when the Gingerellas found themselves sitting in 3 inches of water inside a walk-in closet at a hotel. They wondered if they were going to die.
``We must have told each other `I love you' a zillion times,'' Steven said Monday in their Virginia Beach home. ``We prayed the Lord's Prayer. We'd done everything to protect ourselves.''
It was about midnight Sept. 4 when Luis arrived with pounding sheets of rain and wind gusts of up to 160 mph.
The honeymooners decided the large closet would be the safest place in their suite, and they closed the door behind them. The hurricane smashed windows in their room. When a moon-shaped window high on the closet wall started leaking, Steven propped a mattress, box spring and shower curtain against the wall for a makeshift shelter.
The couple had barely any room to move or fresh air to breathe as rain pushed in around the window and poured onto the mattress. After four hours of relentless pressure from the wind, the window burst.
``Our ears popped because the air had no place to go,'' said Steven, 35. ``The wind was so strong. That's when I thought, `We are going to die.' ''
He said the howling wind sounded ``like someone took a knife and stabbed it into a coyote.''
The wind hammered on the mattress and box springs, pushing it down on the couple.
Steven said he pulled his 26-year-old wife closer, saying that if they were going to die, they were going to die together. He began to apologize for the ordeal.
``It was terrible,'' Steven said. ``We were so cold and wet.
``We kept saying, `Happy anniversary.' ''
Though soaked and scared, the Gingerellas said they remained relatively calm. Then Helen dozed off and began dreaming.
``I fell asleep and envisioned I was in a coffin,'' she said. She began to flail about until Steven lifted her up for a breath of air.
Meanwhile, the force of the wind pulled concrete and nails from the walls, and pieces of the roof were blown into their battered room. Leaves also blew in, and plastered the wall like wallpaper.
When the worst was over, about noon that day, they heard a knock at the door. A hotel worker told them it was safe to come out.
Luis had passed, leaving behind at least three dead on Antigua.
The Gingerellas arrived in Antigua late Sept. 2. They had just a day and a half to relax before the hurricane approached and tourists and residents started fleeing the island.
The couple could not get a flight, and fled from an oceanfront hotel to another hotel a few blocks inland.
They wrapped their passports in plastic, and bought tuna fish, sardines, crackers and canned pineapple juice.
After the storm, the Gingerellas bonded with 10 other hotel guests to hunt for clean water, food and a way off the island.
``It was like being in a war, scouraging for food,'' said Helen.
They eventually got a flight to Puerto Rico. When the plane took off, the passengers cheered.
They arrived home on Antelope Drive Sunday afternoon. Helen said on Monday she had washed a load of clothes for the third time to get rid of the unrelenting stench from sea water.
``It was supposed to be quiet,'' said Steven. ``We wanted to be alone with each other, but it was nothing like that. It was the anniversary from hell.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photos]
Steven Gingerella
After the hurricane, Helen Gingerella posed in the closet where she
and her husband rode out Luis in an Antigua hotel, sheltered by a
mattress and box spring dragged in from their room.
BETH BERGMAN
Staff
In their Virginia Beach home, Helen and Steven Gingerella describe
their ``honeymoon from hell.'' As Hurricane Luis roared, ``We must
have told each other `I love you' a zillion times,'' Steven said.
by CNB