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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1990-03-07, Page 54' THE HURON EXPOSITOR, MARCH 7't i iA Former native EDiiToii'S NO E - The following letter was received r'ee nUy by Alice Hao..uon Horne of Sear'Jroropgb, and forwarded to Pat $enRet of Seefortb. Witten by •Joan Glover) . erttet daughter of Dave and Merle (K) Hoover :of Scarborough, former ;owners of Keat ng Pharmacy in Seaforth, the letter details Mrri. Macken- zie's personal experience with Hurricane Hugo. Joan Mackenzie General Delivery, Plymouth, Montserrat, West Indies. Monday, January 29, 1990 Dear Alice, Let me first thank you for your very kind and friendly letter. You can be sure that it was greatly. appreciated. Life was such a struggle after the hurricane, and we were (are) under so much stress that your letter was like a bright ray of sun- shine. Usually when we .go to the post - office to pick up our mall, bills and junk mail forwarded from Canada are the usual fare. I opened your letter and read it right there on the porch of the old Post Office. For your information, it only took two weeks for it to reach here...notebeo bad, all things considered! I apologize for taking so long to reply. It had been just a little hectic since the Hur- ricane, to say the least. If I had time I could write a Best Seller or T.V. mini- series based just on our experiences here in the last six months. Let me tell you a little bit about it. BUT FIRST, A WARNING! ! ! ! I MUST CONFESS THAT I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE A SHORT LETTER...SO GET COMFORTABLE, OR DO THIS IN SECTIONS! !'! ! We arrived on Montserrat Sept. 1, 1989, just a little over two weeks before Hur- ricane Hugo. We were originally set to come down here on Sept. 24. Sept. 25 was going to be the closing date on the pur- chase of our condominium home here. However, John and 1 were very eager (psychologically and financially!) to get our new business started, so we very effi- ciently accomplished all the many things which had to be done and moved down two weeks early. My, oh my, what a difference in our lives those two weeks have proven to be. Had we not come dowry here early, we would not have purchased the con- dominium yet, and after hearing of the devastation, we may not have come at all. Who knows? As it happened, we closed early on the condo, and moved in quite happily Sept. 1. This condominium is not only located on a beautiful scenic high hill (bad news in a Hurricane), but it was also beautifully fur- nished. It had been purchased and furnish- ed by an elderly millionaire and his wife who felt their huge island estate here was becoming too much for them to handle. They also spend about half the year on round the world trips. There were many painting and art objects in this condo which they had brought i, : ck from Greece, e�nnd til e . �f iPrlAfr They hada art never lived ,in ,the, ,,place bicause Atreir..large estate home had not sold. Anyway, the place had everything you can imagine and more (note past tense). There were two sets of fine china, both with place settings for twelve. One was from China...a blue willow pattern...for every day use! and the other was Royal Crown Darby bone china with 24 carat gold trim. The "silverware" was solid bronze. And there was much, much more I tell you all this as sort of perspective on the humour of it all, I guess. We felt like we had moved into the housewares depart- ment of a fine department store. Even the sheets were gorgeous and still in packages. We loved the place and congratulated ourselves on the bargain price we bought all this for. wri#esau,:t huF: Every afternoon for two weeks, after all otlr meetings with govetualeat ofcials end other bpsiness in town *as done, we were the swim** -ROI 'by' , M: drink in 'hind, reeoinking :friukthe heat ia'. town. Our standing joke -was: that I was; on- ly allowed once a day ta,say "Just look at. those mountains!„ (otherwise I'd pay •it,a dozen times a day.) We "salsa told. aur friends who lived next door that we intend- ed to keep Montserratian construction work hours, which are 7 A.M. till 3 P.M., and that we would be in the swimming pool by 4 PM every day! One week after our arrival here there was a scare when it looked like Hurricane Gabriel would come close by. Montserra- tians laughed at our concerns, as did others who had lived here longer than us. They said that' for sixty years Montserrat had been watching hurricanes head towards the island, only to see them veer off northward. They felt that there. was something in the weather and wind pat- terns that • caused this which would con- tinue to protect the island. Religious Islanders said the island is blessed and protected by God. , As newcomers not accustomed to having such deadly monsters come so close by, John and I were nervous. We watched the weather channel from Miami which had a satellite picture of the Caribbean every hour. We sighed with relief when Gabriel made the predicted swing northward, and Montserrat got not a drop of rain or breath of unusual wind. On Wednesday night, September 14, the weather channel showed a storm forming off the coast of Africa (the birthplace of Caribbean hurricanes). The report used words that had not been used to describe Gabriel...words such as "a serious and dangerous storm". John and 1 continued to watch every hour and by Thursday morn- ing we were worried. This storm, looked bigger and more straight in its path towards us. We agreed that if it didn't veer away by 8 A.M. Friday, we were go- ing to board up our windows and get prepared. It did not veer, and continued to gather strength. Friday morning we went to buy nails and candles and some cann- ed goods etc.. Friday afternoon we cut scrap wood to fit our windows, and Friday night we were still hammering storm shut- ters in place. 1 have a vivid memory of standing in the dark on the roof outside our bedroom' window, holding a flashlight while John drilled holes in the masonry to attach wooden shutters and boards. Look- ing down the steep hillside 1 could see neighbours sitting on their balconies, hav- ing dinner. I'm sure they thought we were crazy. Now 1 know how Noah must have felt! By Saturday morning, Sept. 17, no one thought we were crazy anymore. The sound of hammering was everywhere. The Governor was on the radio urging people to take this storm seriously. Instructions were given, Hurricane shelters were iden- tified, and a curfew was put on the town. Everyone was to, be il�doors py 3.30 PM. The Htirrihane vba§''du 'to li tyat.eroatid 6 P.M. The storm actually slowed down and gathered force out in the ocean, and didn't hit Montserrat until after midnight. Although our house was almost totally destroyed, John and I survived due to some advice from a friend of his in Canada, who grew up in the Caribbean. He said "figure out which room is your Hurricane -proof room, get into the closet of it and stay there and don't come out till it's over!" I laughed when he told us this, but at midnight as the storm began, I Put candles and two chairs and other supplies into the bedroom closet, just in case. At about 1 A.M., I was sitting the first watch, on a chair in our bedroom, while John slept. The mind was aiteadY ding and SWOON the house so badly. that I was trembling and kept reading, a same page of my book over and over again, .comprehending none .of It. Every.5 fltinwtes or 'so I would get up and do some small. thing like move a breaable !item intod .e-upbuard, or fill another pot with Iutare.•dns water, or move another useful item. WO the bedroom closet. Suddenly, Oki ears started popping, the wind roar was deafening, and the wall between our bedroom, acid the living room ballooned outward about one foot, banging the bed headboard violently, and then con- vulsed inward again. John sprang out of bed and we both got into the bedroom closet and closed the door. What followed for the next 10 hours was like something from your worst nightmares, or a horror movie. it was like 'being hit by tornado after tornado (which indeed was what was happening We found out after that the eye of the hurricane has dozens of tornadoes swirling around it). The sound of breaking glass, smashing wood and the roar of the wind were so loud that we had to .often shout to hear each other. The wind came in horrific, powerful blasts that could be heard ap- proaching from a distance,' like a 747 or a large train coming straight at you...and Water Well DRILLING then hitt(t►g you. The wind through our closed window louvres was So strong that it blew the doors ea the opposite side of the house off their, binges and away. Leaves driven fiercely by. the savage wind., were everywhere in the house. A fine spray of salty water raised with sand was in the air in the house...and yet the beach was over a mile away. A most amazing and alarming sound was that of thousands of nails and screws pulling out of wood and masonry as the building warped and swayed and twisted in the blasts of wind. Once John went out in the darkness to try to close the front doors, and was gone too long for my lik- ing. I peeked ,out the door of. our bedroom to see him, and saw instead small, wrigg- ly, foot -long blue "worms" of lightning all through -the dining -room. - We.-stood..up .in the little ,closet for most of the night, afraid to sit down in case we had to run for it.All the long horrible night we tried to calculate when the eye would hit us, and plan where we would run to if the winds abated for a moment, because it was clear that we were in serious trouble. The house was being slowly torn apart, and we felt that we could be safer in one of the condos below ours (ours was the top one)...Alarrning crashes were all around + =enc: We had read that the winds that hit after the eye passes •are worse .than those before it,: and were Very tense (an understatement) and mu::h: 'concerned 'about avoiding serious injury by object« hitting us at 200 mph (glass, galvanized roofing,treea etc).In fact plans .and strategies for survival were the only topics of conversation and thought, We had pillows over our heads in case theroof col- lapsed on us. We had at one point''seen our strong "purple heart" wood roof Lfting up right out of the concrete for two inches and then settling back down. This roof had iron ring beams tying it to the walls and was embedded and tied to a wood beam - with 2 feet of concrete and concrete blocks on top of it. It had to break the ring bean* and concrete to lift it :up.. This. gives youan idea of the forces at work. John had covered me with a bedspread because there was broken glass blowing through the louvres of the closet door. We had hung bathrobes and shirts on the door to block the wind-blown water and glass from coming in the closet. We put on long pants instead of shorts, and wound our hands and knees with silk scarves in case we had to crawl through the broken glass Turn to page 7A W.D. Hopper and Sons Ltd. 4 MODERN ROTARY RIGS Nell Duri 322-1737 = 522-0828 SPECIAL OCCASIONS! *Party Hats *Balloons *Invitations *Plates *Party Hats and morel PLUMBI G *Whirlpools *Bathtubs & Surrounds •Shower Units *Kitchen Sinks •Basins & Pedestals *Faucets by Moen, Chicago, WaIteC9 D&tfi,, .. 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Tom Lemon congratulated the town on its development efforts, and guest speaker Bryan Allendorf of Deloitte - Touche briefed the group on the impending GST and effects. - STRYKER'S af SIDING INSTALLATION •SIDING *SOFFIT *FASCIA •ALUMINUM & VINYL REPLACEMENT WINDOWS •STORM WINDOWS & DOORS •EAVESTROUGHING -QUALITY RENOVATIONS FREE ESTIMATES - SERVING THE AREA FOR OVER 20 YEARS - YCAN ALUMINUM 20 YEAR WRITTEN GUARANTEE Keep up with What's happening in Seaforth and surrounding area. SUBSCRIBE TO 401458sitor 527-0240 Our Regular Senior Citizen Rate is only $1 7.0 0 for a one year subscription 482.7428 R.R. #2 CLINTON r