UPPER MONTCLAIR, N.J. — For New York Red Bulls midfielder Stéphane Auvray, Hurricane Irene is no laughing matter.
The 28-year-old remembers being eight and watching as Hurricane Hugo swept through the Carribean in 1989, when the Category 5 hurricane hit his home island of Guadeloupe.
Estimates put the total damage of Hugo at more than $10 billion at the time, and part of that was damage to Auvray’s home.
“My family lost the roof of their house,” Auvray said.
The tiny Caribbean nation is used to storms, so Auvray isn’t too flustered by the Category 2 Hurricane Irene expected to hit the New York area this weekend. The Red Bulls’ scheduled match on Sunday evening against the LA Galaxy was cancelled in anticipation of the storm, but Auray speculated that, “It will be pretty light compared to what we go through in the Caribbean.”
“In Guadeloupe, we know when it’s hurricane season, it can be an easy one or a hard one,” Auvray said. “We live with it.”
Auvray will be staying in his hotel room, as the recently acquired midfielder has yet to settle into the area after being traded from Sporting Kansas City earlier this month.
