Tropical Storm Tomas Arrives (I)

At the end of hurricane season, a small tropic depression with a 10-20% chance of becoming a Tropical Storm developed east of Barbados.  By Friday afternoon, hours before it struck as a tropical storm, Tomas, tearing roofs off, throwing lawn chairs about, and ripping seemingly well rooted trees from the ground and onto the power lines, it had jumped to 100% chance.  I stood with my friends at Zaccio's Pizza as I do on Friday afternoons and chatted casually about how serious the storm might actually be.  When I left, my friend Karl and I stopped into the SuperCentre to buy a few staples, just in case.  We have a hurricane/emergency supply already at home, also just in case, but I bought balloons and chips and water and yogurt.  You know, the essentials. 


When I arrived home on Friday evening, a little boozy and a lot tired, my landlady called to tell me she thought we should take in the patio furniture and shutter the house.  We would indeed get hit by the storm some time around 2 am and we should be cautious and prepared.  Didier walked in the house after a bullshit day on the job to my insisting he start taking in the furniture while I fed and prepped the girlies for bed.  It was, of course, already raining, soon to be pouring while furniture was brought in, some into our house, some into the guest house, some into a storage house on the property called the chattel house.  After the tables, chairs, and loungers, along with tricycles, big wheels, and other riding toys were brought in, the windows and glass doors were shuttered and strapped shut with wooden beams.  I took out candles, flashlights, made a little emergency escape pack and we went to bed.


When Virginie woke at 3 am and couldn't be satisfied with singing and nudges to take juice rather than nurse, I walked her to her father in our room and returned to the girls' room so that Lily would not be frightened if she woke up to a storm.  About one hour later, we heard a Phhhmffff! like an pump gun and the power went out.  It was pitch dark in the house.  You couldn't see your hand in front of you.  I felt the presence of something moving about and then saw a small light flickering.  It was Didier with the flashlight walking through the house.  He has heard the sound of the pump gun or whatever that was as well and has gotten up to take a look.  With all the windows shuttered and it being completely black around us, we never did figure out what the sound was.  The darkness was all encompassing and the rattling shutters made it sound like we would soon take off to Oz.  I moved Lily from her bed to the guest bedroom with me, just in case the Aki tree next to the girls' room should fall.  I mean, it really did sound like that was a possibility.  Didier returned to our room with Virginie and they went back to sleep for about 2 more hours.

In the light of the day we could see that the pump/air gun sound we'd heard was the palm tree next to the pool breaking off and falling in.  There was a palm tree sitting like a dunked tea bag in our pool.  There was so much wind and rain.  Looking out one of the uncovered windows in a bathroom, Didier watched two trees just snap on top and break behind the guesthouse.  Hours later, as the monkeys came through to check out their old haunts, they found two of their favorite trees down. They moved on and I have not since seen them in the garden. 

Trees are down everywhere.  The lime tree in the front of the house is ripped out of the ground.  One of the palms is hanging over the front wall.  There are palm fronds all over the streets and a huge tree has crashed across our street preventing movement in or out. 

Our neighbor paid some guys about $50-100 to remove the tree so he, and subsequently we, could get out.  They took to it with machetes and saws.  We could hear the sound of sawing into the afternoon as they tackled another tree crossing the main access road as well.

I took an old phone that I'd allowed the girls to use as a play phone and plugged it in so we could at least make phone calls.  The phone line was still accessible, unlike our power.  The Blackberry too, given Didier for work, was still functioning.  There was flooding, in some places knee deep on our street and we were locked in.  We eventually opened the shutters when we saw the storm had passed but we had no power for the rest of the day and night.  The girls ate a little ice cream and the rest was tossed.  We figured we had about 24 hours on our freezer, as the fridge is less than 6 months old.  The balloons turned out to be a hit as we blew up about 6 of them and bandied them about the house for fun. Bedtime came early, as it was so dark and we were all exhausted.  Didier and I didn't sleep as there was thunder and lightening all night long. 

I am just not sure I am prepared for this.  Emotionally.

(c)  Copyright 2010.   City Mom in the Jungle.