Our Story: How a Hurricane Changed Everything
If you had asked us in the summer of 2018 what our future looked like, we would have told you about a quiet retirement on the beaches of Costa Rica. The goal was to downsize, sell everything, wait for Joseph’s 20-year retirement and then buy one-way tickets out of the country... Set up in the jungle and teach English or pick up gig work from our laptops.
At the time, we were living a very different, structured life in a rented home on a suburban golf course. Joseph was an active-duty Marine navigating the challenges of chemotherapy, while I was a volunteer firefighter, and homeschooling our eight-year-old son. We were both in college full-time, and I stepped away from the department to take better care of Joseph.
We were just a family trying to get through a difficult season. Then, Hurricane Florence hit.
When the Water Rose
On September 14, 2018, the storm slammed into North Carolina, turning roads into rivers and leaving millions of animals to fend for themselves. As the toxic floodwaters receded, an eerie sight emerged: groups of industrial factory farmed pigs began walking out of the woods and swamps. They were appearing in neighborhoods and on busy roads – hungry, disoriented, injured.
While some neighbors saw them as a nuisance or even used them for target practice, we couldn’t stand by. We began assisting sanctuaries that couldn't reach the area due to washed-out bridges and flooded roads. Within a month, we had helped rescue and relocate nearly a dozen "hurricane pigs".
We thought that was the end of it. We were wrong.
The Leap of Faith
In October, we were presented with a choice: someone offered us an opportunity to save 42 "cull" piglets from a nearby farm. These three-month-old babies were sick and deemed "economically nonviable". The storm had interrupted the transport schedule and these piglets were scheduled to be gassed and discarded in a dumpster.
We had no facility, no experience with large-scale rescue, and very limited resources. It was a massive undertaking... but we knew we had to be their voice. On October 16, we loaded those 42 piglets into a trailer and brought them to a safe staging location. Some of them were in heartbreaking condition - from pneumonia, massive hernias, and untreated infections. None of them had never even felt sunlight or grass.
Our lives became a 24/7 whirlwind of round-the-clock feedings, emergency vet runs, and antibiotics. We cried through the hard times, but we found solace in watching them discover the joy of tummy rubs and playing in the mud for the very first time.
Becoming the System
The calls didn't stop. While caring for the piglets, we began finding more hurricane survivors who had been living in the woods for months. We found ourselves rescuing new groups - sometimes twice in a single day. In just three months, we had accidentally rescued over 100 animals.
Eventually, sanctuaries stopped offering placement, and we realized that we had to be the destination, not just a pit stop. We ditched the Costa Rica brochures (for now) and made a "bold" move to a 47-acre property in Duplin County - the absolute heart of "hog country". Moving here was a statement as much as it was a necessity - we chose a home surrounded by industrial farms – because it was where the animals needed us most.
We named our home Sisu Refuge. Sisu is a Finnish word that embodies extraordinary resilience and the determination to push beyond what seems possible. Since that first storm, we have rescued more than 1,000 animals from factory farms, research labs, religious ceremonies, backyard slaughter, and criminal cases. We have pushed ourselves past every reasonable limit to protect them.
Sisu represents the resilience of the animals we fight for, the journey of what it took to get here, and it also defines us as a family. We have pushed ourselves, past the reasonable limits, in order to protect these animals and we will continue to fight for a better world.
We believe that when there is no system designed to help, you must become the system. Today, Sisu Refuge is one of the largest and one of the few “Big Pig” focused sanctuaries in the world, specializing in rescue from commercial farming systems.
Thank you for standing with us, for donating, and for being part of this incredible journey. We couldn’t do this without you! - Erika & Joseph
This is a photo Julian took when we first moved here - I was mid-sentence while we were walking the property and making plans of what we were going to build! That string was for our first fence!
