Falko Judt and Rosimar Rios-Berrios were watching the approach of Hurricane Maria to Puerto Rico last September with the intense focus that would be expected of two scientists engaged in hurricane research for their livelihoods.
They were engaged in another way, too — to be married there Nov. 4, in the small mountain community of Barranquitas, where Rios-Berrios had grown up, and still had many family members.
The couple, both hurricane researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, where they also live, were up late into the night of Sept. 19, 2017, tracking the menacing storm’s development on radar.
“I went to bed around 11 and she said she was going to stay up and watch the storm,” Judt said Thursday. “She was going to stay in contact with people on the island. At 4 a.m. she woke me up and said, ‘It’s making landfall now.'”
“I was surprised. It wasn’t supposed to make landfall until 8 or 9. It was earlier than forecast, or expected. I checked the radar and saw it was a very impressive looking hurricane. We thought, ‘This is not looking good.’ Right after that, the radar was destroyed and we didn’t get any more communication, at that point.”
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