It seems than in the wake of hurricanes, whether they make landfall in Jamaica or have a close relationship with our coastline, the official reports we get afterwards always seems to be conflicting.
In September 1988 when the monster Hurricane Gilbert hit us, I was at a brother's residence in Golden Acres near to Red Hills.
The first part of the hurricane began on a Monday at some minutes to 2:00 pm and, never having seen a hurricane before, it was pretty much of a show for me to leave my house in Havendale and 'spend the hurricane' with a brother who had been newly divorced.
I was just on the mend in my own relationship, and my wife and young children were safe in Harbour View at their grandparents' slab roof house.
At Golden Acres I positioned myself at the door at an upstairs balcony and, with binoculars, scanned as far as I could see through my 8x35. The first part was relatively harmless.
It has to be recalled that Gilbert traversed Jamaica almost in a straight line from east to west. That meant that at all times Jamaica would have been engulfed in the most dangerous part of the hurricane, the eye-wall. As the system moved westward, the outer bands would first affect a location, then the western eye-wall and then the calm of the eye.
As it continued, that location would then encounter the eastern eye-wall and after that, the outer bands in the most eastern part of the storm.
The thing is this. I have friends who tell me that the hurricane began on the Monday and finished that same day.
What was my experience and the experience of others at Golden Acres? The first part of the hurricane 'blew off' in about two hours. A neighbor across the road, but about 30 feet below us, invited us for drinks. While we were there I was constantly timing the hurricane and telling my brother, 'Listen, we only have 10 minutes, let's go.'
We eventually got caught at the neighbour's house and, 50 metres from my brother's house, we could not get back. It was then that I saw what a real hurricane was — the eastern side of Gilbert's eye-wall. It damaged everything, including divesting the neighbour of his roof, relieving my brother of his and, unknown to me at the time, Gilbert took the roof of my house in Havendale sailing two blocks away.
We were in hurricane conditions until about five the next morning. And yet I keep hearing that Gilbert hit Jamaica in the day and completed its wrecking-ball trip that same day.
In Sandy, the only other direct hit since Gilbert, I am getting the same conflicting stories. Reports have said that Sandy hit Jamaica five miles from Kingston and then continued on its north, north-easterly trek. If that is so, and I live not very far from Kingston (Red Hills), why did I not experience the calm of an eye and then another few scary hours of wind in the opposite direction?
It is my belief that the centre of Hurricane Sandy was probably a few miles off the eastern coast. As the hurricane moved northerly, based on the experience I had that Kingston and St Andrew were at all times in the western eye-wall, there was no lull, no eye.
Reports say Sandy lasted for three hours. Was that three hours of 60 minutes each? What was my experience and that of all people in Red Hills? The hurricane began at about 1:30 pm and started tapering off at about 6:30 pm. That, in my book, is five hours of unrelenting, driving wind.
Let us get at least one fact straight. Sandy was nowhere near as monstrous and damaging as Gilbert was. That said, Hurricane Sandy was certainly no dance in the park. Five hours of category one winds, which sounded like category two, is more than testing on one's mental strength.
Chupski slept through it. I paced the floor like an idiot and was constantly plugging leaks at sections of windows and at places where the roof was breached.
Unlike Gilbert, as Sandy faded and we were fully able to view the landscape, while significant amounts of trees had broken apart and some had fallen, the majority still had leaves, even though most breadfruit and avocado trees were without fruit.
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