The Lucknow Sentinel, 1988-11-23, Page 8Page 8 Seid*. 1, Wed ay, November 23, I288
Jamaica in the wake of the "roofless wind"
Note: Sentinel Editor Rob Bundy recently
returned from a media tear of the island el
Jamaica. The purpose of the government
sponsored tour was to view the recovery
being made there in the wake of Hurricane
Gilbert which tore through the Caribbean
in
September.
Followingthe second of two reports.
When a North American tourist arrives
in Jamaica, he first' notices -the heat but
next he reveals in the fact that everything,
unlike home, is lush and green. Vegetation
is profuse to say the least in a tropical set-
ting such as Jamaica.
But ask a Jamaican and he will com-
plain that the greatest destruction caused
by Hurricane Gilbert was the loss of "the
green on the land".
"The land she brown now," said Nelson.
"Jamaica lost her green in the storm. It
will grow fast but it look bad to me_"
Nelson, an elderly gentleman, works ten
hours each day, six days a week, nixnog
cement for a construction company. He
lives near Ocho Rios on the north shore of
the island and walks four miles to work
each day. The journey home at night is
uphill for the most part
While joining Nelson in his walk home
one evening, he told me about what the
hurricane of September 12 meant to him
and his family. Whale it didn't cause him
anything more than a loss of a day's work,
he remembers the fear that set in on the in-
habitants as they waited and watched for
the killing wind to hit.
"We heard in -the morning on the radio
that he be corning that night, maybe by
afternoon," Nelson remembers as we stop
halfway up the hill that winds its way
towards his basic but quite comfortable
hone. "I, me don't have any television,
just the radio. It said we should stay home
from work 'and prepare we house for dat
wind."
Nelson says he didn't really believe that
such a wind would ever come and that he
and his neighbours spent most of the morn-
ing "just talking, not doing."
"It wasn't until the afternoon that the
radio said he be coming for sure And I was
scared then. I thought I'd never see a hur-
ricane and now it was sure_ I didn't know
what to do. The weather he got dark and
the power was shut off to be safe, so we had
no radio anymore."
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He stops again on his walk and looks at
his feet for some time before continuing.
"if Gilbert had come at night, many peo-
ple would have died. It is our blessing he
come in the day when we could see him. I
sent my children to a relative's home that
was stronger than mine. My house be
small with a tin roof."
The story Nelson relates about how, at
five in the afternoon, Hurricane Gilbert
pummelled the land is almost terrifying.
You can hear the fear in his voice even
now, more than two months since the wind
hit.
"I was in my house when he come. I was
sitting on the floor in the corner. I be
scared, mon, I be scared like never before.
I heard the roof rip off and I looked up and
it was gone. Like a flying scaucer, you
know. He went flying away. The next day
we found my roof one mile away."
He is not the first person I spoke to that
referred to Hurricane Gilbert as "the
roofless wind".
After another stop on the long hill, he
continues_ "I ran from the house to me
relatives house. They roof he stay, we be
safe. No one in the family hurt."
Nelson admits that, while the hurricane
didn't actually last very long, it seemed
hie days that he and his family huddled on
the floor waiting for it to end.
"And when he gone, the green was gone.
The trees, he bent to him," he says in his
thick Jamaican accent.
Headless palms
Along the coastline that houses the bulk
of Jamaica's tourist hotels and resorts, the
tall, once stately palms stand like topless
telephone poles. Where once were thick
boughs and clustered coconuts is
now...nothing.
Closer to the ground, the vegetation is as
lush as ever, but higher off the ground the
palms stand decapitated. The sadest part
of the loss of the palms is the fact that they
grow very slowly. Many of the centruy-old
trees won't have leaves for years now.
By stark contrast are the gardens of the
major resorts - the plush hotels that
welcome thousands of Canadian tourist
each year. The resorts were quick to
rebuild and replant for the very economy
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