Cathy Schneider
Category 5: Surviving the Longest Night
September 17 will mark 35 years since Hugo, a Category 5 hurricane, tore through the U.S. Virgin Islands and the southern coast of the United States. The island of St. Croix, which measures only 26 by 6 miles, is where Cathy Schneider survived the harrowing experience of September 1989 when Hugo swept through the U.S. territory with 168 mile per hour winds, destroying 90 percent of homes and businesses on the island. Communications and transportation were knocked out, and for a time, St. Croix’s 55,000 people were simply cut-off from the world. This included Cathy and Paul Schneider and their two sons, aged 6 months and three years old at the time.