Hurricane Odile ripped through Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, on Monday—a Category 3 hurricane that left a wide path of destruction in its wake. Initial reports on Tuesday that local Chabad emissaries Rabbi Benzion and Sonia Hershcovich, co-directors of the Cabo Jewish Center, had been missing have now proved unfounded. But the area was badly hit, and relief supplies are slowly making their way from the United States.

At first, “we didn’t know if the reports were true,” says the rabbi’s brother, Rabbi Zvi Hershcovich. “It may just be that they ran out of cell power," noting that Benzion had called his parents on Monday evening.

The family had spent the night before huddled in the only windowless room in their house. As the storm howled, they saw electric wires exploding outside. They spent the night awake, trying to reassure their terrified children.

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Meanwhile, relatives and friends all over the world prayed for their safety, dividing up the Book of Psalms among themselves and forming a nonstop vigil.

The rabbi told his parents that they were without running water or electricity, and that they were trying to conserve power to be able to communicate via cell phone.

Hershcovich did venture out to check up on local residents and reported meeting one acquaintance who was in the hospital awaiting surgery on a hand badly injured by a fallen door, according to his brother.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Hershcoviches were working on obtaining a generator to connect their giant freezer, which contains kosher meat for the entire region, before its contents spoil.

Relief Efforts Begin

Meanwhile, in San Diego, Calif., Chabad Rabbis Mendel Polichenco and Yonah Fradkin put together supplies for the first convoy that is bringing much-needed relief items—most importantly, a generator, fresh water and kosher foodstuffs—to the Chabad centers on Cabos and nearby La Paz, Mexico, which have both been pounded by the storm.

“I just returned from Tijuana with my wife, Dini," says Pochenco. "We had to cross the border in a caravan of three cars since there is a restriction on how much you can take from the U.S. to Mexico. After arriving to the Chabad House in Tijuana, we loaded everything (two heavy-duty generators, solar-powered chargers, hundreds of pounds of meat and chicken, large amounts of drinking water, many foods that don’t require refrigeration and jerry cans full of gas) into a heavy duty 4x4 pickup truck—the only type of vehicle that can make it to Cabo now with the current road conditions.”

Larry Barnes and John Krasner from Chabad Without Borders volunteered for the 20-hour drive to bring the supplies to the Hershcoviches in Cabo, and Rabbi Alexander and Esty Piekarski in La Paz, Pochenco reported. “We daven to G‑d that they arrive safely and fast.”

Hershcovich also said that he is arranging for two rabbinical students to join them as they scramble to deal with the devastating disaster right before the start of the High Holidays.

Those wishing to assist in the ongoing effort, which has thus far cost more than $5,000, can do so here.