On Hurricanes and Other Things

Hurricane Dorian

We arrived in Tobago on the 20th of August which is easy to remember as the days fade into one another because it was David's Birthday.  At the time of our passage from St. Lucia, there were no significant weather systems in the Atlantic which is why we dropped south out of the Hurricane Zone for these historically active weeks.   Wouldn't you know, about a week later, we began to pay attention to a Tropical Depression forming just 100 miles east of us that would have been directly in our path had we waited any longer.  That particular TD developed into a Tropical Storm as it moved past St. Lucia and Martinique heading NW to the USVIs and Puerto Rico attracting national attention as it threatened US waters.  Most of the northeastern Leeward Islands were spared and suffered only high winds and lots of rain.  Then the TS developed into a full blown hurricane and slowed down to intensify into the Major Category 5 Hurricane known as Dorian before it stalled over the Abacos and Grand Bahama wreaking unprecedented havoc there.  In the days leading up to its descent on the Bahamas, I had the same gut wrenching, sick to my stomach feeling that I had when watching hurricane Katrina approach New Orleans.  It was a similar scenario - relentless and merciless winds, intense ocean surge timed at high tide, and low lying landfall - with no escape for the people who stayed behind.

Unlike our president, I have seen a few Category 5 Hurricanes, because I have been watching the North Atlantic version of them for exactly 30 years.   Until Hurricane Hugo in 1989 which ravished my future home in South Carolina, there wasn't much discussion on hurricanes amongst the sailors I knew.  On rare occasion, one might encounter someone who had experienced a cyclone in another part of the world or maybe an older saltier sea dog had a tale because no one could remember a sizeable hurricane since the 60s in the Caribbean Basin.  There seems to have been a twenty five year lull in activity in the North Atlantic.  I know that the last major hurricane to hit SXM was Donna in 1960, until 1995, for example.  I believe this was true in other Caribbean islands as well.  Hurricane Hugo ignited much discussion on safety measures and as I became a captain around that time, it was my responsibility to learn as much as I could about them.  In 1992, I was in the Grenadines for a second summer season on the Nautical Ketch I was operating.  Hurricane Andrew hit South Florida on August 16th of that same year.  That system was so enormous, it seemed to have sucked all the weather out of the southern islands as it passed, I remember the eerie weather vacuum that month in Bequia.  In later years, when I was renovating my house in Miami, it was a constant battle to conform to all the building codes set forth as a direct result of the devastation from Andrew and a constant reminder of the damage a hurricane could render.  By the time I sold that house it was a secured fortress, and I worried less, but nature is an unreckoning force. 

The very first hurricane that I was to experience first hand was on September 5, 1995.  Luis was a direct hit on the island of St. Maarten at a Category 4 which means that the sustained winds were in excess of 130 MPH.  The eye collapsed over the island spawning tornadic winds over 200 MPH (as was reported at the time) during the 36 hours it took to regenerate and move on.  I was operating the Lady Mary dinner cruise ship in Simpson Bay Lagoon which already had a hurricane set up; a life size (bigger than me anyway) navy anchor buried in the sand in 15 feet of lagoon water then attached with substantial chain to a steel mooring ball.  My contribution to the system was diving on the anchor regularly, inspecting and replacing the seizing wire on the shackles, and splicing a 3 inch diameter nylon shock line onto the attachment chain allowing for a 360 Degree spin around the ball, which worked brilliantly for many years...until it didn't.  This was the storm that taught us all about collateral damage.  Simpson Bay Lagoon was the Hurricane Hole for all the neighbouring islands.  When we took Lady Mary to her mooring several days before the storm, we witnessed a constant cavalcade of boats of all descriptions and sizes entering the Lagoon and most of them could do no better than throw out as many anchors as they had available and clear the decks of loose items.  Three days later, 1400 vessels were sunk, grounded, washed ashore in piles, and missing completely.

Like the Bahamas, SXM was the home of an enormous work force of immigrants, mostly Haitians and Dominicans who lived on rented parcels of land forming shanty communities.  Along with all the reported deaths from Hurricane Luis was the very real tragedy of untold victims who had no protection and nowhere to go for safety.  Being undocumented illegals there was never any way to prove how many were lost and there will never be any truth to the official number either.  The tourists were evacuated immediately and inbound planes were restricted.  The island was without power in many places for six months and the water desalination plant took two months to become fully operational.  The looting began immediately, curfew went into place, two men were shot by police, reinforcements by means of the Dutch Navy and French Gendarmes also controlled the border, limited money was allowed to be withdrawn from banks when they finally reopened, the island looked and felt like a war zone.  People were in shock, everything was a mess. The hot, sticky aftermath was terrible.  The aftermath always is...terrible.

It has always stuck in my mind how many people underestimated that storm.  Admittedly, I was as excited as anyone else, this being my first hurricane and all, but I took it very seriously and never doubted it's potential relying on everything I had heard for guidance and yet I remember people actually telling me that they didn't even believe a real storm was coming.  Those same people ended up in their bathrooms under a mattress when their roof blew off.  In 1995, we barely had internet down there.  We were all glued to The Weather Channel with its US priority bias (if we could find a cable connected TV) every hour for updates and local VHF Marine weather channels.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I stayed in SXM for six more years and seven more significant hurricanes before repatriating to Miami, where, I swear, they followed!  But before I move on, I will mention two more storms of note: One storm required us to move the Lady Mary off the dock at 50 MPH winds.  The whole crew was supportive enough to ride out to the mooring while we waited to see where it would go and how strong it would be.  Being an active business, we wanted to take down the multiple awnings and canvas at the last minute because it took days to put it all back in place yet only hours to rip it down.  As it happened the storm strengthened last minute and headed our way and by then it was a Category 1 Hurricane and it was too late and far too dangerous to dingy anyone ashore.  I had heard reports of 15 foot seas inside the lagoon during Luis, but until I saw it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it.  I spent two days in the wheel house, engines at the ready with JP and Lorna, the owners and good friends.  Many times, we thwarted boats threatening to come between us and our mooring ball by manoeuvring as they crashed into us.  One bareboat caught our anchor at the bow with its anchor and slid down our side. The sound of released chain scrapping the steel hull was excruciating racket until I could hacksaw it loose during the eye.  I was so impressed with the crew who never admitted how scared they were until later and Lorna who kept me alert with Irish Whiskey Coffees as needed.  The other storm of note was the rogue Hurricane Lenny, another Category 4 in mid November 1999 out of the west which destroyed the leeward side of the island with 40 foot ocean surge.  We know how high the seas were because it measured to the tenth floor of the Maho Reef Hotel!  The seas entered restaurants and hotel rooms, crunched up commercial stainless kitchens and hotel furniture like paper wads and washed it all away without a trace.

When hurricanes threatened Miami and the University Research Vessel was in port, we simply drove it up the Miami River where we had a concrete hurricane dock.  We tied multiple lines loosely for surge, secured the deck, and walked away.  Four hurricanes found me in Miami, three I rode out in my house which never suffered much damage, but my tropical garden was always a mess.  One of those hurricanes was Katrina, which, even as a Category 1 as it passed through, did wicked damage all over town, it surprised us with its unexpected brutality.  The hurricanes that threatened the Gulf of Mexico when I operated workboats out there were not my call for evasion.  There, we waited for word from the head office ashore to tell us which way and when to outrun them with their assets.  It was always a jaw clincher and we were sometimes on standby for rig evacuation last minute, but the boats were big, powerful and fast.

This somewhat highlights my impression of hurricanes but you better believe I have plenty more stories, for example; My two dearest French friends, rode out a storm in their sailboat and managed to wash up on the rocks during the eye.  They simply walked off fearlessly to refuge at the nearest house where they were taken in by some very bewildered occupants whom they happened to know.  And that's not even what killed their boat in the end!  It later caught on fire where it drifted onto shore!   All of us who have lived in the hurricane zones for the last twenty or so years have tales such as these.  I think we can all agree that constant monitoring, a continuous state of preparedness, and early action will save lives and it is far easier to weather these storms on the mainland than it will ever be on an island.  The aftermath is much kinder too.  In every one of these last 25 years I have had some skin in the game be it a boat, a house, or a job and it is always that....a game of chance.  We can gamble with our property but we should never, ever, gamble with our lives.  That's why insurance is so dear.

This year when I saw the joke on the internet where literal spaghetti pasta was thrown against the map, I couldn't help but smile because that seems to be about as far as we've come with predicting hurricanes.  They intensify within hours, change direction seemingly at whim, reach the point of recurvature and spin out to sea, or stall out completely.  They are either way more intense than expected or disappointingly weak when we've gone to all that trouble to prepare.  In a vast potential playground, even with today's technology, they are, at best, elusive fuckers.  Most of us have already decided what we will do.  If we run, we hope to run the right way.  If we hide, we better hide in a fortress on the hill.  Otherwise, let's just not be in the way at all.  

On india, we have the advantage of being mobile, so we plan to locate ourselves accordingly and seasonally and when our seafaring adventure finally ends....we will be in England, a place where hurricanes don't exist.  


* David and I are extremely saddened by the devastation hurricane Dorian has wrought on the Bahamas.  All of the beautiful places we visited in April and May of this year have been severely damaged or completely destroyed.  Our hearts go out to all those who had no opportunity to evacuate and all those who were lost and have lost.