Bermudians have a unique relationship with hurricanes, and I am no exception.
I know how to read shark oil and the types of waves that appear when a hurricane is close. I’ve learned how our architecture is to our benefit when it comes to hurricane recovery, and I know it’s handy to keep a chainsaw or machete on hand to help with cleanup.
As a child, I could see how ancient peoples interpreted these forces of nature as acts of God. Powerful, intimidating and fascinating are a few words that come to mind. While we have technology and knowledge now that explain these natural events, when I reflect on my experiences with hurricanes, I always remember the people.
Innocent excitement
I was eight years old. It’s a Friday, I think, and I don’t remember why I had not gone to school. I do remember that the sky seemed unusually grey, and I was glad to have time with my family. We lived on Eastdale Lane in Southampton, close to Rangers. This road went down into the valley, so it was about halfway down into Wellbottom. Our home was protected by a hill on the south side, and on the north and east sides, we overlooked the bottom of the valley with the workshops and commercial warehouses.
It seems so sudden in my memory, that the wind came out of nowhere and made the whole island viciously dance. We could see the entire valley from our house, clear across to Camp Hill Road and Horseshoe Road. My mother, brother and I stood by one of the windows looking at the various items blowing by.
First, there were the usual suspects: leaves, branches, bags, light trash. However, it didn’t take long for things to get interesting. Our neighbour’s shutter whipped by. “Ooooooo,” we chorused. Was that a tent? “Aahhhh,” we gasped. While nothing landed in our yard, if we had kept an inventory of all the materials we witnessed going by like frenzied runway models, we might have been able to build a treehouse.
We may have been observing this show for about half an hour and providing our commentary before my mother came to her senses and exclaimed, “Good grief! We need to get away from the windows! Hurry up you children and let’s get someplace safe.”
Aw. We wanted to watch the show! However, we came more safely into the house and spent the day playing board games.
In the resulting power loss, I got to learn how our tanks worked and how to get water from our tank using a bucket and rope. Good times.
Decked by a wave
I was in my teens. This hurricane didn’t hit us directly, and I don’t remember which one it was, but it caused some effects to the island that I had not witnessed before or since. My cousin and I decided to go to Horseshoe Bay just to see what it looked like.
Well, it looked like a brand new beach. There was no sand to walk on, the water was all the way up to where the plants grow on the hill. The water was so uncharacteristically deep that we were able to swim to the rocks on the far side of the beach, climb up and dive off! That was an experience I would love to do again, but my body probably couldn’t handle it now.
This was how I truly learned to respect the power of water. When we had finished diving, we decided to walk the length of the beach to go out the main exit as we didn’t want to go up the sandy path we called Kilimanjaro. We had to walk right next to the vine-like plants (what are those things called?) on the hill at the back of the beach, but we were still walking ankle-deep in water.
As we were chatting, a three-inch deep wave came in and the next thing I knew I was on my back coughing up sand and salt. Yup, I got decked by a mini wave. My cousin never let me forget that one.
How to impress someone
There was only hurricane that I experienced on my own: Fabian. I was renting an apartment that was part of a house. In the aftermath, I was helping the landlord to clean the yard and dispose of the debris at Marsh Folly. He may have been recently divorced, because as we were in line to make the drop, someone saw us in the truck and shouted, “Hey, ya, bie, now THAT’S the type of woman you should be with!” So, ladies, should you ever be looking for a man, there’s a skillset I can recommend that might hasten the process: hurricane recovery.
How not to impress someone
I called some senior relatives during one hurricane prep time. They were by themselves, and I felt they might need help screwing on their hurricane shutters. I didn’t want to see a senior up on a ladder and having an accident, so my husband and I went to assist, complete with my toolkit meant for women. We got there and they were grateful for help, but the gentleman asked what tools I had. I showed him my ‘toolbox’ and I put that in quotes because this thing was little better than a toy. Now, to put this in context, a standard hammer is 15 to 20 ounces. My little hammer was eight ounces. The man laughed and laughed and practically waved me away from his house.
“What in the world are you supposed to do with THAT?” he gasped. The next year, they got automatic shutters. Glad to help.
In Bermuda we pride ourselves in braving many a storm, but the way we really do that is by supporting each other as a community. Let’s keep doing that so that future generations can have hurricane memories of their own.
