Santa Rosa man stranded on St. Martin after Hurricane Irma tore through island

A Santa Rosa man remained stranded Friday with his girlfriend on the Caribbean island of St. Martin after being battered by Hurricane Irma as Category 4 Hurricane Jose barrels toward them.

Matthew Popovich, 28, was already on a Labor Day vacation when it became clear the island was in Irma’s direct path, said his sister Sara Popovich, who has been in contact with the pair through spotty cellphone service. The airport closed before they could leave.

Dutch Prime Minister William Marlin has said the nation’s territory - it shares the island with France - suffered destroyed schools, government buildings, homes and hotels, according to the Associated Press. The electricity company lost its roof, generators aren’t functioning, water tanks are gone, gas stations were destroyed and looting was reported.

Now, Matthew Popovich and his girlfriend, whose name his sister didn’t know, await rescue by U.S. authorities, hopefully before Jose hits today. The island is already under a tropical storm warning for Jose, which was upgraded to Category 4 Friday morning.

Earlier this week, with the storm still a day away from the island, the 2007 Cardinal Newman graduate, now a web developer in Washington, D.C., and his girlfriend thought they would be OK since they had a flight scheduled out that evening. But by afternoon the airport was closed, Sara Popovich said.

The two bought several days’ worth of food and water, booked new accommodations at the Simpson Bay Resort & Marina, and planned to wait it out, his sister said.

“Some of the good things about that hotel is it’s made of concrete, so they thought it would be able to weather the storm,” she said.

After the storm swept through the island, he texted his parents Cindy and Mark Popovich in Santa Rosa, and sister in Orange County, to say they were OK. From his Twitter account, Matthew Popovich has posted pictures showing the extent of damage, including roofs torn from buildings, crushed cars and fallen trees stripped of leaves.

Thursday he posted about “lots of misinfo being spread,” noting the “vast majority” of buildings on the island “are structurally intact, thanks to must-build-in-concrete laws.”

The same day the two got word a U.S. military plane was on its way to pick up some of the estimated 6,000 American citizens stranded on the island, but the aid never materialized. Friday morning, Matthew Popovich texted his family again that a plane was scheduled to arrive.

“Basically that never happened yesterday,” Sara Popovich said. “There was no plane coming. It was all talk. So the texts from my brother yesterday were starting to get more and more desperate. … We’re skeptical whether (Friday’s rescue) is true. We’re pretty concerned at this point. We’re just hoping for his safe return.”

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.