In recognition of the 2009 hurricane season, I'll reproduce an essay which appeared 20 years ago after Hurricane Hugo struck Montserrat. I, like many other ex-pat Montserratians, was sitting around for the phone to ring, hoping in vain for good news from home. After this piece appeared in Gannett Westchester Newspapers, my editors sent me to Montserrat for a week. As the 20th anniversary approaches, I am looking for people who are willing to share their memories of Hurricane Hugo - whether its in the Caribbean or in the Carolinas. Caption information:This is a view of Kinsale from Fort Barrington,Montserrat, about a week after Hugo struck.
Memories of Hurricane Hugo: Waiting for news- Sept. 1989
The tone of my sister’s voice over the phone Friday night was calm, even nonchalant. We’re stocking up. But we’re not boarding up. It’s too much trouble. Insurance would pay for the damage. Anyway our houses are built properly. This isn’t Jamaica, she said.
Those were the last words I heard from home for a week. For the subsequent four days, like hundreds of other Montserrat and Caribbean nationals living in the United States, I havebeen hanging on to last words from home. Words of misplaced optimism.
I talked to my sister just hours before Hurricane Hugo lashed Montserrat with 150-mile an hour winds, high seas and torrential rain. For days afterwards, I waited ,worried and listened to hear word of what was left of my island, my home.
The first twenty four hours were the worst. The early television news accounts of storm damage were dominated by reports from the larger islands - Guadeloupe, Antigua, the U.S Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. There was no news about Montserrat.
I wondered:If Hugo could tear apart Guadeloupe and Antigua, then what could possibly save Montserrat, a hilly, 39-square-mile, pear shaped island which sat between them.
News from Montserrat began coming in late Sunday the mountainous lush green island and its twelve thousand residents took the brunt of Hugo’s fury.
At first the only detailed information came from exhausted amateur radio operators who reported that six people were dead and the hospital, police headquarters and court house had been destroyed. Half of Plymouth, the island’s capital, was reported to be under water.
I thoughy back to my sister’s optimism. This was worse than Jamaica.
Furtive phone calls and hourly news bulletins confirmed my worse fears. Ready or not Montserrat had been hit by one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the Caribbean in decades.
I called Linelle and Wendel Lee, a Montserrat couple vacationing in NYC, whose return trip was delayed by Hugo. Not knowing what happened to their son, home, and pharmacy had made it nearly impossible for them to eat or sleep.
“You can’t comprehend the size of this disaster,” Linelle said. “I won’t be able to understand until I see it for myself. You can’t get anything specific. You think about it and you cry.”
News of Montserrat’s plight has not been easy to get. A call to the British Consulate, which handles matters dealing with Montserrat, wasn’t much help either. So my wife and I traded updated information with the Lees by telephone.
It wasn’t until three days later that television news reports brought me face to face with reality: Virtually the entire population was homeless, the reports said.
British television provided live footage of the disaster, but I still could hear no definite word about who was safe and was wasn’t. What of my sister, her husband and her three children who had spent part of the summer with me in New York? Were my dad, granddad, grandparents and numerous friends and relatives safe?
My wife, Chris, had reason to be concerned too. Although most of her family lived in New York City, her parents were in Montserrat. Their wood frame house is nestled in the rural northern section of the island, exposed to high winds and susceptible to flooding.
A first time expectant mother, Chris has taken things in stride. She decided she’d worry when the time came. Amid the worry and the wait I knew there was one person , my grandmother, who would not take the approaching storm lightly. At 67, she had experienced two devastating hurricanes in her lifetime. I remember as a child that whenever there was an approaching storm, she would talk about the hurricane of 1928. It ripped the roof off her parents’ house and forced her to put her younger sister on her back and take seek refuge in the nearest church. The hurricane of 1958 was equally devastating.
Growing up, I was her companion on numerous hurricane vigils. Together we braced for storms that always seemed to weaken or radically change course at the last minute. On Montserrat, hurricane warnings are a summer ritual, as much a part of our lives as cricket, calypso and tourists. Hurricanes are to the Caribbean what tornadoes are to the American Midwest.
As a young boy, it was my responsibility to nail the windows shut, stock up on batteries, kerosene and other essential items. Every few years or so a small storm or a distant hurricane would bring heavy rains and strong winds. Trees fell. Corrugated metal roofs flew away. Dry gulches became raging ravines. The inconvenience of life without electricity or running water for a few days was a small price to pay for days off from school or work. I knew my grandmother would take no chances. I feared more for the young, able and inexperienced. Like me, they were accustomed to the hurricane watches and warnings that amounted to be little. To them fallen trees, surging waves and swollen creeks were matters of adventure and fun, nature's spectacles to admire.
They had seen near misses. They saw Hurricane David in 1978 when it glanced Montserrat and devastated Dominica. After so many nea0r misses it was easy for the young to believe that the worst can never happen to them. They were wrong.
Those were the last words I heard from home for a week. For the subsequent four days, like hundreds of other Montserrat and Caribbean nationals living in the United States, I havebeen hanging on to last words from home. Words of misplaced optimism.
I talked to my sister just hours before Hurricane Hugo lashed Montserrat with 150-mile an hour winds, high seas and torrential rain. For days afterwards, I waited ,worried and listened to hear word of what was left of my island, my home.
The first twenty four hours were the worst. The early television news accounts of storm damage were dominated by reports from the larger islands - Guadeloupe, Antigua, the U.S Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. There was no news about Montserrat.
I wondered:If Hugo could tear apart Guadeloupe and Antigua, then what could possibly save Montserrat, a hilly, 39-square-mile, pear shaped island which sat between them.
News from Montserrat began coming in late Sunday the mountainous lush green island and its twelve thousand residents took the brunt of Hugo’s fury.
At first the only detailed information came from exhausted amateur radio operators who reported that six people were dead and the hospital, police headquarters and court house had been destroyed. Half of Plymouth, the island’s capital, was reported to be under water.
I thoughy back to my sister’s optimism. This was worse than Jamaica.
Furtive phone calls and hourly news bulletins confirmed my worse fears. Ready or not Montserrat had been hit by one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the Caribbean in decades.
I called Linelle and Wendel Lee, a Montserrat couple vacationing in NYC, whose return trip was delayed by Hugo. Not knowing what happened to their son, home, and pharmacy had made it nearly impossible for them to eat or sleep.
“You can’t comprehend the size of this disaster,” Linelle said. “I won’t be able to understand until I see it for myself. You can’t get anything specific. You think about it and you cry.”
News of Montserrat’s plight has not been easy to get. A call to the British Consulate, which handles matters dealing with Montserrat, wasn’t much help either. So my wife and I traded updated information with the Lees by telephone.
It wasn’t until three days later that television news reports brought me face to face with reality: Virtually the entire population was homeless, the reports said.
British television provided live footage of the disaster, but I still could hear no definite word about who was safe and was wasn’t. What of my sister, her husband and her three children who had spent part of the summer with me in New York? Were my dad, granddad, grandparents and numerous friends and relatives safe?
My wife, Chris, had reason to be concerned too. Although most of her family lived in New York City, her parents were in Montserrat. Their wood frame house is nestled in the rural northern section of the island, exposed to high winds and susceptible to flooding.
A first time expectant mother, Chris has taken things in stride. She decided she’d worry when the time came. Amid the worry and the wait I knew there was one person , my grandmother, who would not take the approaching storm lightly. At 67, she had experienced two devastating hurricanes in her lifetime. I remember as a child that whenever there was an approaching storm, she would talk about the hurricane of 1928. It ripped the roof off her parents’ house and forced her to put her younger sister on her back and take seek refuge in the nearest church. The hurricane of 1958 was equally devastating.
Growing up, I was her companion on numerous hurricane vigils. Together we braced for storms that always seemed to weaken or radically change course at the last minute. On Montserrat, hurricane warnings are a summer ritual, as much a part of our lives as cricket, calypso and tourists. Hurricanes are to the Caribbean what tornadoes are to the American Midwest.
As a young boy, it was my responsibility to nail the windows shut, stock up on batteries, kerosene and other essential items. Every few years or so a small storm or a distant hurricane would bring heavy rains and strong winds. Trees fell. Corrugated metal roofs flew away. Dry gulches became raging ravines. The inconvenience of life without electricity or running water for a few days was a small price to pay for days off from school or work. I knew my grandmother would take no chances. I feared more for the young, able and inexperienced. Like me, they were accustomed to the hurricane watches and warnings that amounted to be little. To them fallen trees, surging waves and swollen creeks were matters of adventure and fun, nature's spectacles to admire.
They had seen near misses. They saw Hurricane David in 1978 when it glanced Montserrat and devastated Dominica. After so many nea0r misses it was easy for the young to believe that the worst can never happen to them. They were wrong.
