written accounts of Gustav

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Accounts from Tropical Storm Gustav



Monday, August 25, 2008:

In an email from a friend, she warns we might get a little bit rain tomorrow night. I haven’t yet heard about this Gustav character yet. Right now, I my only concern is that it’s dry enough to play soccer tomorrow night.


Tuesday, August 26, 2008:

News stations are preparing the public for Hurricane Gustav. The eye of the Hurricane was supposed to hit the north coast in the evening. Gas stations and grocery stores have huge lineups as customers stock up on emergency goods. For a change, people are talking about something other than the Olympics. Quietly, I am looking forward to the Hurricane, being the naïve foreigner that I am.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008:

The rains start. News travels that Gustav has been downsized from a class one Hurricane to a less intense Tropical Storm (lower wind speed and no eye in the middle of the wind).
The rain stops this afternoon – the mood is almost eerie. Fewer street venders are out and about and the crickets are noticeably silent. The quiet before the storm…people are being sent home from work to prepare.
Everywhere I go, people warn each other to be careful and stay safe. By evening, we are still waiting for Gustav to fully arrive. On the ground level, the wind is non-existent, but in the sky, the clouds are picking up speed. Still no storm.
Thursday, August 29, 2008:

We found out late Wednesday night that the storm had shifted course and is now heading to the south coast – Kingston bound. eek! My house mates ensure we all have emergency plans before heading for work. Just as I arrive at work, the Prime Minister announces on the radio that everyone must stay home from work. The drive home is like rush hour at 10am.
In true Jamaica fashion, the storm arrives late. By evening, Gustav’s winds arrive, gusting up to 115 km/hr. Rain pounds the roof like a mallet. We sit tight, and try following the news as the power flickers on and off. We fill up jugs with water, but already water from the pipe is turning brown from rising levels of groundwater. News arrives that Haiti has suffered 22 deaths already from the storm. A couple of Jamaicans have also died attempting to cross a gully.
At 8pm, one of my housemates is called in to work a shift at Storm Emergency Headquarters. We travel through empty streets that are usually packed with vendors and pedestrians. At times, the streets look more like canals. I think we’d be more efficient on a gondola.

Inside headquarters, water’s dripping from the roof as we crowd around a computer to watch Obama’s historic speech in Denver. A couple phone calls come in from people who are waste deep in water. Despite the odd emergency or road closure, it is surprisingly slow.

Friday, August 29, 2008

It rains hard throughout the night and morning. At 9am, police are in the neighborhood evacuating residents living beside the gully. An 11-year old friend tells me her family stayed behind when parts of their house blew off; they will have to rebuild elsewhere. Despite the gravity of the loss, she seems in good spirits and invites me with a smile to come and see the damage.
One of the neighborhood boys watched two fully intact houses flow by last night. In our neighborhood, water came two feet above the gully, flooding some homes and destroying another house down the road. Parts of a roadway beside the gully have collapsed.
Kingston is lined with gullies, which are designed to drain rain water out of the city. They can be up to 8 metres wide and 3 metres deep. By the time a gully overflows, there’s so much water flowing through that it causes major damage to the squatter settlements right beside it.
My earlier enthusiasm for ‘the storm’ quickly disappears after seeing the damage in the neighborhood. Images resurface in my memory of rural Jamaicans I’ve met weeks earlier, who are still rebuilding from losses incurred during Hurricane Ivan in 2004.
A hurricane moves so rapidly that it comes in contact with a region for 3-4 hours. But, with a tropical storm, they tend to linger. The rain can last for a couple days. In a country where the sewage and drainage systems are underdeveloped, it can cause more severe damage at times than a hurricane. Sustained rains cause landslides in rural areas and flooding in the cities.


Saturday, August 30, 2008

The heat’s returned and the sun’s weight can be felt as soon as you step outside. The morning is quiet, but by mid day, music stereos are bopping again and kids are out’n about playing. Despite some bizarre weather patterns, you can barely tell Gustav paid us a visit yesterday. Jamaicans have not forgot about their epic Olympic performance, but with the storm, it now feels like a lifetime ago.
In Jamaica there are a dozen or so related deaths, but fortunately the vast majority survives the storm. With Gustav, this decade has now experienced more tropical storms than any other decade in recorded history. While these storms may not be a direct result of human induced climate change, they are arguably connected.
Back home a moderate change in climate affects us particularly in rural areas, but the damage is far less severe than regions closer to the equator. Here a minute temperature change can lead to more hurricanes.

Sunday, August 31, 2008

Life is back to normal. Singing can be heard from churches, the grocery stores are bustling and the Sunday Newspaper is on street corners again.

Most Jamaicans don’t seem terribly distraught about the damage. They’re serious about it, but instead of mourning their losses, they have a relaxed and assured outlook that life will go on. In Canada, we could do with a little more of this kind of attitude. The calm always follows the storm.