Hurricane Season

In Jamaica, and other islands, (for I heard the same chant in Barbados) it is;  June –  Too Soon    July – Stand By August – It Must   September – Remember  October – All Over.

This isn’t really scientific, because Sandy was born in October, but it is pretty accurate.

After Gilbert, in 1988, I was terrified of Hurricanes.  Gilbert took my roof.  Once the roof was gone I hid in the bathroom.

Just saying “I hear a storm is coming” got me into panic mode.

When Ivan arrived in 2004 I was such a mess that my friends loaded me into a car and took me inland where I could have the shakes.

When Dean came in 2097 I was again evacuated and spent the night safely inland being a wreck.

Deciding I was no longer going to be a wreck I joined the Parish Disaster Committee and took for myself the job of being outside in my yellow banana uniform monitoring the storm.

I usually do what I am afraid of, and it was long past time that I confronted my fears.

The problem in Jamaica is flooding.  We have no drainage system.  Various experts have visited Jamaica to determine that obviously the roads were built as drains.

The second problem is that very often river beds fill with stuff and no one digs them down.  This means that a ‘dry river bed’ will become a raging fifty foot deep river if there is a lot of rain.

Monitoring a River bed in a hurricane is kind of scary, in a way.  You see the river bed before the storm starts and know, if you trip you’ll fall far enough to be killed.

In the middle of the storm the water is a torrent licking the banks, and unless there is a space, it will take away a bridge.

And you can bet it will be a long time before some kind of bridge is put up again.

Cuba knows how to deal with storms.  As soon as they get the data they put plans for evacuation into train and for them to move 250k people is no problem.

Cuba gets better data than most of us.

I have learned to go to boatus.com to track storms.  Boatus insures yachts.  If they make a mistake it will cost them millions of dollars.

Where standard weather services can shrug, Boatus has its pocket to protect.

When hurricane Thomas threatened, I told everyone that it would not hit Jamaica.  No one believed me.

They activated the ‘troops’ opened the shelter.

I sat on the beach at midnight watching nothing, because, as Boatus said, it would pass between Jamaica and Haiti…which it did.

A storm is now forming south east of Jamaica.  It is expected, according to Boatus, to strengthen tonight as it passes.