• Look Back In History
• Pmessages
• Quiz
• Stump The Staff
• Top Fifty
• Close

The World According To Dutch: Junkyard Dog And The Killer Hurricane Pt. 2

Posted: Jan 27th 2011 By: CMBurnham

Finally, the hurricane hit and hurricanes move slowly sometimes as slow as 10 miles per hour and due to Hugo's size, that meant that the storm could possibly have a life span over Puerto Rico of 6 to 8 hours before it lessened. Dog looked at his watch. It was 11:20PM. The lights were out and the hotel had no emergency lights at all. The only light he had, Dog told me, was a bic lighter, a box of matches and a candle. Dog said he didn't know why there was a candle in his room but I told him that was standard fare for rooms in the Caribbean...and not only in Puerto Rico. A candle was in his room for exactly the same reason he was holed up in his room that night. Hurricanes. All hotel rooms in the Virgin Islands, Barbados, Aruba, Antigua, the Bahamas...had the same emergency rations of matches and a candle. I've been in a lot of rooms in the Carribbean and they all had three things in common. Matches, a candle and a Gideon Bible which, if you think about it, could prove very helpful in a Category 5 hurricane.

The slower speed of the hurricane allowed Hugo to punish the island of Puerto Rico with the worst beating of any location along the hurricane's destructive path. At 2 am local time on September 18, 1989, Hugo's eyewall struck Puerto Rico bringing incredibly strong and deadly 140 mph winds. 

Dog said time literally crawled by and the winds were deafening as it sounded like the whole island was being blown away. Through the roar of the intense winds, he heard objects outside slamming into other things. As he sat in complete darkness, Dog said he found a spot in the bathroom and put as many walls between him and the hurricane as he could. As the wind pummeled the island, the little hotel was shaking and he said he had never been so scared in his life because the only thing that stood between him and the WRATH OF GOD was a small guest house type structure that wasn't built to withstand a hurricane of this magnitude.

As Dog hunkered down in his bathroom praying for a lessening of the storm, he suddenly heard a huge ripping sound which was very close to where he was. He knew it was part of the hotel he was in and he heard screams..but it was total darkness and he was helpless to do anything. The screaming continued for a few minutes and then stopped but the hurricane didn't.

The hurricane continued on and on and on. Dog looked at his watch...1:38AM...2:16AM....3:47AM...Dog said it was the longest night of his life. Finally...at around 5:45AM, Dog heard the winds and rain subsiding. It was 6:15AM when Dog started seeing rays of sunshine starting to break through the window blinds in his room. Then Dog ventured to his window to get his first look at at how much damage Hurricane Hugo had manufactured the night before.

Dog told me it looked like a war zone. Trees were down, power lines were down, cars were sitting on top of each other and there was flooding on the streets. Even though everything was in turmoil on the ground, the sky was a brilliant blue color and the day was beginning to look like another beautiful day in Paradise. beautiful. It wasn't until later that Dog learned the severity of the storm.

Damage in Puerto Rico was severe, especially in the eastern part of the island. Agriculture was devastated, the crops of coffee and bananas were completely destroyed and the infrastructure was severely damaged. 12 people died with 30.000 people losing their homes and the damage was estimated at exceeding 1 billion dollars. And those dollars in in 1989 dollars.

Dog also saw how close he came to meeting his end when he found out about that that was completely destroyed. It was only a 100 feet from where Dog had been hovering in his bathroom floor and two floors up. The winds had completely sucked the roof off one end of the building exposing a couple of the hotels room which were on the corner. In the rooms, there had only been a woman and her pet dog. Both of them were missing.

Dog knew that it was time the get the hell outta dodge but he had to wait until the traffic started moving again to grab a cab to the airport. As he grabbed his bags and made it down to the street, he saw hundreds of tourists all hurrying to get off the island. Dog caught the first cab he could signal down and intructed the driver to take him to the San Juan International Airport.

When Dog got there...about 11AM, again, he wasn't the only one with that idea. The airport was packed just as much as it had been the day before. But Dog had seen planes circling the airport from the cab so he knew that at least, air traffic had already been restored.

Street lights were not working because the power was out but the airport was running on emergency power. When Dog arrived at the airport, Dog headed to the USAir counter to grab the first flight he could get and the line stretched out into the street. But he was lucky. He booked himself on a 8PM flight to Charlotte which meant that he would spend all day at the airport but at least, he was getting off that island. Dog said most of the food places at the airports were closed...not that they didn't have food. The reason they were closed was because none of the employees came to work. Dog said he was starving, irritable, hot and crowded. He had eaten all his snack foods that he had gotten the day before and all he had left was a couple of candy bars to last him until he got on the plane.

Dog caught the flight to Charlotte and gave thanks to God that he made it safely. Dog said he slammed down the meal that was supplied to him. For those that can't remember, airlines used to serve meals on the plane..in first class and in coach. Since he hadn't slept, other than short cat naps, he slept the entire way to Charlotte. As he stepped off the plane, he again gave thanks to God for sparing him and vowed to never, ever get caught in another freaking hurricane in his life. Dog told me North Carolina never looked so good!!!!

END OF STORY...well not yet. Keep reading. It gets better.

This would be a great time to end this feel good story..of a man overcoming adversity and triumphing in victory having survived a Category 5 hurricane. It would be great to end it that way...but what's that old saying about Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction? Even though the Dog was through with HUGO...or thought he was, that didn't mean that HUGO was done with him.

Dog made it back to his home in Wadesboro and he was so glad to see his family again. Just the night before, Dog had been in the midst of a MONSTER Category 5 HURRICANE with 150 MPH winds knowing that he was seconds away from death at any moment.

But hurricanes don't really have a destination...Dog tole me....they just meaander on and on until their power expends itself. Dog sat there in his living room that night with his two little girls surrounding and watched the news reports from Puerto Rico. But Hugo wasn't dead yet. Hugo was still on the move and was still a Category 5 hurricane and moving directly northwest toward the US mainland. The forecasters predicted a direct hit on the US southern coast.

Hugo moved northwest along the coast of Florida and hit Charleston, SC on September 22nd but it didn't stop there. HUGO moved right up into the interior of the Carolinas and Dog watched in horror as HUGO seemed to be coming directly at him. Dog told me that Hugo was coming on a straight path toward him almost as though the he had personally supplied the hurricane with this mailing address. And sure enough, the next day, Hurricane Hugo hit North Carolina and again the Dog had to hunker down, for a second time, in three days as HUGO came to visit him one more time. Before Hugo moved on, the Dog's house
was damaged to the tune of $10,000.


Dog told me that he had never heard of any person being caught in the same hurricane twice in different locations 1.800 miles apart but somehow, he had managed it. And I'll have to admit, that I had never heard of that before either.

Now that's a helluva story even if I do say it myself.

Post script:
The Junkyard Dog is no longer with us and its a shame because he was a man with a good heart and a man who contributed greatly to the wrestling profession. I liked and respected him very much as he was always the same guy every time you saw him. Very personable and very friendly. He died on June 2, 1998 in a car accident on Interstate 20 in Mississippi as he was returning from his daughter's high school graduation in North Carolina. The apparent cause was falling asleep at the wheel.

On March 13th, 2004, the Junkyard Dog was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by the great Ernie "the Cat' Ladd and was represented by his daughters LaToya and Christine.

RIP Mr. Ritter. I honor you today with this story and it was a good one.

And as Paul Harvey used to say..."that is the REST OF THE STORY".

Tags: Dutch Mantell, Junkyard Dog, WWE, Ernie Ladd