Things that Matter: Of hurricanes, floods and acts of God

Every loyal Bajan is comfortable in the belief that God is a Bajan (For the non-Bajan reader, a Bajan is a Barbadian). It’s a belief strongly based on the fact that a dozen tropical storms and hurricanes target Barbados as they cross the Atlantic, but turn north almost miraculously – almost always, it seems, at the last moment. And this belief in God’s nationality ranges in strength from a somewhat casual “taken-for-granted and with-a-pinch-of-salt-and-a-dose-of-humour” to a passionate conviction. It no doubt ensures sound sleep in the presence of thunder, lightning, roaring winds and floods of rain. And every time a tropical storm does what Matthew did, pointing at us and then turning just enough in a West-North-Westerly direction to deliver just a couple of inches of rain and some gusty winds, God’s birthplace and patriotism is reconfirmed.

 

When you consider that in the past 150 years some 300 hurricanes have made landfall in the USA, and many more went North in the Atlantic or West into the Gulf of Mexico; that every year there are, on average, some twelve named storms, six hurricanes and three severe hurricanes of category 3 or above; that that’s 180 hurricanes traversing the Caribbean region over 30 years, and all we’ve had is threats, an occasional lick and a promise… think of Allen, Ivan and Tomas, and now Matthew … you can perhaps understand the strength of Bajan belief.

 

In fact, Deighton Best, retired Director of the Barbados Meteorological Service, lists some 23 hurricanes affecting Barbados over our recorded history. From the details given on the web, about half caused significant flooding, some damage, landslides and occasional loss of life. Our three really devastating hurricanes were in 1675, 1780 and 1831. That of 1898 was of modest size and did most damage in the North, while Hurricane Janet in 1955 was Category 3 when it hit us, with the eye reputedly just off or over South Point, and winds of 110 to 120 miles per hour, but it reached Category 5 when it hit Mexico. 

These statistics suggest that we have a hard hit every 50 years over the last 200 years, and “believers” consider our sideswipe by Tomas in 2010 to have been our due (or overdue) hurricane in our fifty-year cycle! And some cynics have even suggested that the annual prediction by Professor Grey of Colorado, year after year, of ever more severe Caribbean hurricanes adversely affected our tourism – whether consciously or unconsciously … so I tell my friends in Florida and the Carolinas to come to Barbados in hurricane season and avoid the hurricanes.

 

But as our Emergency Department reminds us constantly, we must be prepared. We only have to read the historical records to take hurricanes seriously. Listen to the Reverend Griffith Hughes in his Natural History of Barbados (1750) giving stories of the hurricane of August 31, 1675: “Some hours before the Storm began, the Heaven was overcast with thick Clouds, of a black reddish Hue; the Air calm, but sultry … when the Violence of the Storm began, the Wind was high and varying, to every Point of the Compass … attended with dreadful Rain, Thunder, and Lightning. The Sea overflowed its Banks … above an Hundred Yards. Behold, Darkness and Sorrow. Lightning darted … rapid Flames, skimming over the Surface of the Earth. The next morning, the whole Island afforded a terrible Idea of the Tenth Egyptian Plague of old: for there was scarce a House but lamented one dead in it, or in general something equal, or worse. Several families were entirely buried in the Ruins of their Houses.”

 

In Schomburgk’s History of Barbados (1848), he quotes a graphic account of the 1780 hurricane (October 10th), in which the roof of Government House fell in, the cellars filled with water, and the governor and his secretary fled the house, taking refuge under gun carriages! “Nothing can compare”, wrote Major-General Cunnighame, “ with the terrible devastation that presented itself on all sides; not a building standing; the trees, if not torn up by the roots, deprived of the leaves and branches; and the most luxuriant spring changed, in this one night, to the dreariest winter. Houses that, from their situation, it was to have been imagined would have been in a degree protected, were all flat with the earth.” More than 4 000 were killed, and damage estimated at 1.3 million pounds – perhaps a billion pounds today. 

 

Schomburgk gives even more detailed and graphic accounts of the hurricane of August 11th, 1831: “About 11 o’clock in the morning of 11th of August, I ventured out and walked from the Careenage along the bay; not a house, not a wall, not a tree to be seen standing, until we reached the Honourable Mr. Beckles’ dwelling (part of which only is injured). In one place the heads of numberless dead were seen, in another arms and legs severed from the body … To the garrison … barracks almost to the ground, and numbers buried in the ruins. I next proceeded to Bishop’s Court; here too was ruin and devastation – not a wall standing except the New Hall …” and so on. 

 

Hurricane Janet killed some 35 people (some sources say 38), destroyed or badly damaged 8 000 houses, and left thousands homeless. Memorable losses were the Pilgrim Holiness Church in Christ Church, killing a number who took refuge there, the steeple of St. Martin’s Church, and the cinema at Worthing. I was 11 at the time, and we were living in the rented Ashbury House in St. George. When we heard the hurricane warning on Rediffusion, our father rushed off to his Parochial Treasurer’s office at the Glebe in St. John to secure it, and returned home to secure the house. He spent two hours on a long ladder shutting and nailing the jalousie outer window shutters in place, with my brother and me handing him nails. He finished just in time when the rain and gusts began, and we peered through upstairs windows at cabbage palm trees swaying through 90 degrees and snapping in two, and big trees being uprooted. We were soon banished to the room thought most secure to “ride it out”.

 

The message: Better to be safe than sorry. Far better. Meanwhile, a thought and many prayers for our friends in Jamaica and Haiti, who may be in the path of Matthew.

 

(Professor Fraser is past Dean of Medical Sciences, UWI and Professor Emeritus of Medicine. Website: profhenryfraser.com)