Hurricane David—An Ill Wind That Blew No Good
The darkest day in Dominica’s history, according to the island’s president, Jenner Armour. The day was August 29, when for eight hours the devastating winds of Hurricane David pounded the island. The “Awake!” correspondent there submits this report.
FEW of Dominica’s 70,000 inhabitants took Hurricane David seriously when it was lurking miles eastward out in the Atlantic. Even with hurricane warnings throughout the Windward Islands, few believed David would actually strike Dominica. The day began routinely, but by midmorning gusts of wind were snapping tall coconut trees like matchsticks. Dominica, as well as other Caribbean Islands, was not to escape the 150-mile (240-km) winds of this killer.
In the vicinity of Grand Bay six persons died as David ripped at buildings and damaged 90 percent of the houses. There a father of nine was getting ready for work.
“I was upstairs. I heard a loud shrieking of the wind. It was getting louder and louder. It was frightening—the sound of it. It came from all directions. The north first, then east and west. I saw my south wall in the dining room start moving and swaying. Somehow I managed to hold it and nail it. Then the other side began shifting.”
It was a day-long ordeal, but the house was saved in spite of heavy damage to the roof.
One man was in his brother-in-law’s home in Roseau.
“I put on a pot and started eating. But the others wouldn’t touch a thing—kept asking how I could eat at a time like this. I was laughing at them because they were afraid. Then I felt the whole house moving and shaking like it was in an earthquake. I got up and tried to hold the door. The winds got worse and the roof began to lift. At one time I looked outside, and my little pickup truck was actually suspended in midair! I put my brother-in-law’s wife and baby behind a door and stood in front of it to protect them. We knew that if the roof went we would have to run somewhere else for protection.”
Another experience is that of two elderly missionaries, one 74 and the other 80. They were alone in their home on the second floor of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, in Roseau. One of them reports:
“Water was gushing under the dining-room door. I retreated into a nearby bedroom and called Gust to come in there also. He had braced himself against the bulging door to keep it from giving way. Out of the window I could see things flying around in the air. I went into the closet to get protection on all sides, but there was a terrible explosion from my bedroom. The window of my room had blown out. I remained in the closet until the roof blew away, then got in the shower stall, as this would afford protection from all sides. The roof was gone from it and a broken rafter from the roof was banging about wildly. I glimpsed Gust standing in a corner atop the sink counter with a yellow plastic washtub over his head. He had taken up this position for protection after the door he was holding collapsed and threw him to the floor. He said that against the dark sky outside sheets of galvanized iron from roofs were flying around in the air like giant buzzards.
“Near midday the winds let up briefly and we went downstairs into the Kingdom Hall. That night over 30 persons took refuge there.”
Throughout the day the fierce winds drove people from place to place. As part of a dwelling collapsed those inside would dash to another for refuge. There they would spend the remainder of the day in the company of other wet and shivering victims of the storm. In fleeing, some would see their intended place of refuge destroyed even as they were struggling to reach it. Others were still less fortunate. At La Plaine, on the east coast, a young man gave this account:
“We could see that the waves of the sea were very high. After a while there was thunder rolling, and next it was like an earthquake. My mother and I were holding the door. My sister panicked and pushed at me and screamed that the world was ending. She ran outside. I saw the house shifting, drifting, and she was running alongside. I saw the house coming down on her. We tried to get the house off her, but couldn’t. Then she cried out, ‘Oh, God! Mama, I die!’”
Immediately after the hurricane, Dominica was cut off from the outside world for 24 hours. Two weeks earlier a six-month-old general strike had ended, which had curtailed importation of sorely needed foodstuffs. The streets of Roseau were piled high with rubbish. And shortly before the general strike had started, rival political factions had overthrown the administration of the first premier of the six-month-old republic. So the situation was crucial for Dominica’s 70,000 people. Particularly so as now the entire agricultural system lay barren with little prospects of any substantial produce before 1980.
Several countries began airlifting a great variety of supplies into Melville Hall Airport, at the north end of the island. With the piling up of relief supplies another problem developed—a wave of looting commenced. Perhaps born of anxiety and despair, nevertheless it was as if some evil force took over many of the populace. One observer reports:
“By afternoon persons in all sorts of vehicles invaded the airport and began looting in the presence of police. I saw a minister of a local church struggling to lift a bag into his van. I called out to him and asked what he had in that bag, but he would not answer.”
At J. Astophan Co., Ltd., one of Jehovah’s Witnesses who works there told what it was like two days after Hurricane David:
“The road was literally blocked. People were all over the place. I never saw anything like it in my life. Persons carting and hauling away lumber, cement, freezers—anything they could get their hands on. It was amazing to me. What are you going to do with a fridge or television without electricity on the island? They carted off 100 new refrigerators. The first day they carried them on their heads and carts. A few days later in trucks and cars. I saw people sitting by the roadside with fridges waiting for a ride to the country.
“Actually the looting went on at the warehouses for over a week, all day and night. All the new cars were either stolen or stripped. They took engines out of them and removed tires.
“All of the spare parts, over a million dollars in goods left over from the hurricane, were cleaned out. Thousands of feet of lumber, steel rods and cement were taken. Tons of frozen foods also were hauled away in cars and by hand in broad daylight. Other company warehouses in the area were looted in the same way.”
The chairwoman of the Marigot Village Council, who witnessed people carting off bales of blankets and items, said she could not sleep for some time after seeing persons she knew and respected change suddenly before her eyes into thieves.
The storm really brought out the worst in some people, while, thankfully, there were those who showed courage and concern for the safety and welfare of others. But before all the population of this lovely island and others lay the difficult task of rebuilding their ravaged homes and lands.
As for Hurricane David itself, in its wake on Dominica lay 42 dead, hundreds injured and over 60,000 homeless. Moving northwestward it struck the Dominican Republic killing 1,000 more people there.
One young witness in Los Alcarrizos related:
“We watched from the veranda as sheets of zinc ripped loose from houses and flew through the air. When one came a bit too close we moved inside, but there the banging of our own zincs made us even more nervous. We looked outside, saw two houses in the block across from us collapse. Then one after the other, seven more. We couldn’t believe it! A moment before there had been a block of houses; now there was just a pile of rubble!
In Bani the missionary home of Jehovah’s Witnesses sheltered 40 people, plus dogs, cats and a parrot. Unfortunately, not all shelters provided safety. Five persons died when the Catholic church in Guaybin collapsed. In Malpaéz, near San Cristobal, 100 persons sought shelter in a church that collapsed, killing 16 and wounding 50. In Villa de Ocoa another Catholic church collapsed and buried 400 persons in its ruins.
The word “hurricane” comes from an Indian word meaning “evil spirit.” Surely the people of Dominica will agree that Hurricane David was an ill wind that blew no good.