A lot of people asked what it was like in the hurricane.
The simple answer is, scary.
The long answer is more complex.
First there's the buildup.
For days you'll be tracking it, not sure which site to follow. And the
reports from the various sites is conflicting with each other. There is
the 2 main streams. The European model and the GFS that is American
based and never the 2 shall meet. Even right up to the end they were
different of where the eye was actually going to cross. Bearing in mind,
that predicting the weather is a bit like a gypsy glaring into a
crystal ball predicting your future. It is not an exact science, with a
lot of unknowns.
Every man and his dog have their own theory also.
Worst of the lot, the ones who've been through a hurricane or 2
themselves. With some making it off as nothing and others becoming
hysterical.
End result: total hysterics and confusion with stress levels rising to unimaginable heights.
Most leave everything to the last minute, and a mad rush and more
confusion to follow. That after a month of time for preparation. Lesson
learned, say not to anyone rushing and stick to own hurricane plan and
prep.
The end result is that you can't wait for this thing to hit
and get over and done with this madness. Not realizing the real madness
is about to start afterwards.
The storm itself was a gradual
buildup. Fast but gradual. Winds kept increasing during the night, and
about midnight I got the kids down from their upstairs bedroom into the
living room. All storm shutters were drawn by then and all windows taped
up. Inside roof were inspected and emergency and contingency plans
worked out for in case certain areas might fail. Also where winds may
come from and what to do in case of building failure. Turned out to be a
good thing. All the weak points as foreseen did fail. A couple didn't.
Which way doors closed was also important to keep in mind.
Then it
started. The real blow. The noise was incredible. I realized things were
going badly when I started hearing loud banging noises. Like 5
battering rams is pounding the walls at once at different points. The
building vibrating. I thought at the time the roof beams were coming
off. Meantime it was the top floor wall caving in and parts of the roof
blowing away. Worst of all, we're so bunkered up, and cants see nothing
but 4 walls. Looking for cracks appearing and hoping no structural
damage starting to show. As were the case. After a particular loud bang
and something bending the steel storm shutters from outside, I did
notice a crack in the concrete around the only window in our bunker. Was
it the wind or some piece of debris that created it? Maybe a bit of
both. At that moment I thought that that was it. And then it was over.
We were right in the middle of the eye and a moment to catch our
breaths.
Going outside, total destruction met our eyes. Cars
floating in the water and alarms going off everywhere. We had about 1/2
an hour while the eye passed over us. The ocean flowed like a river into
the lagoon, past the buildings.
I tried to call a friend and by
some luck got through. He gave me by some miracle an update and
confirmed that it is almost over. We went back into our makeshift bunker
and it all started over again. This time from a different direction. At
this stage we were more protected from the winds by the angle of the
buildings. But we could hear the destruction taking place around us. I
managed to sneak a look now and again, since we were now in the lee of
some buildings, and our broken storm shutter gave us a small glimpse of
the destruction taking place. Wood, tiles and sheet metal screaming
through the air. Trying to decapitate anything living in its path. For
the next 4 hours the wind gradually slowed down till about 1400 down to
about 40 kts.
We considered it safe to venture outside.
We were shocked into silence by the total destruction. Speechless.
It looked like a bomb went off and we were standing on ground zero.
It looked like the whole island were the Center of some twisted atomic bomb experiment........................
Unknowingly, tears just rolled down my face while we were walking down
the road. As I looked around, I saw people dumb struck and crying
everywhere. None of them realizing that they're crying. Myself
included.........................
Irma, aftermath
As the last bit of winds died down, walking down the streets, assessing
the devastation, an influx of local people into the mostly tourist area
caught my attention.
I was wondering where they came from this
fast. The local little gas station with bakery and shop was destroyed
and goods strewn all over. Some storm shutters were damaged and a wall
or two blown over. My thoughts at that moment was, just secure those
things and all would be ok. Wishful thinking. As we were walking down
the street, looking for friends to see if they are ok, our new visitors
started loading their bags with anything and everything they could
carry. At first I didn't register what was happening, then all of a
sudden it dawned on me, 'looters'.
I couldn't believe it. Hundreds
of them were all of a sudden amongst us. Carrying away first all the
alcohol they could lay their hands on. And then everything else.
We
were all trying to compute what was going on. French families with
kids, that have just experienced the most horrendous storm, loosing
everything, and all of a sudden this?
The wind was still blowing about 40kts.
Where did they come from?
How did they survive?
How did they knew to come here?
I saw people with blood running down their faces where windows have
exploded in their faces, and here are these people laughing and stealing
and having a party. I was astonished.
We located some of our friends, and it was a very emotional getting together, finding out if everybody was ok and alive.
What a relief.
Darkness thankfully set in early and things calmed down. We all just
trying to find some dry spot to sleep for the night. Exhausted after the
last 48 hours of no sleep and preparing for and dealing with the storm.
That first night was relatively quiet. Or so I thought.
At about 3 in the morning I heard some shouting and a commotion in the
building next to ours. I stood up and looked outside, but things seemed
to have quieted down. Maybe just some domestic dispute.
The next
moment a series of gunshots rocked our world. I jumped up and peered
through the window, seeing 2 men running around with torches. Lighting
up the buildings. I saw that one of them was carrying a pistol. Not
knowing if it was friend or foe, I went around, made sure all the doors,
or what was left of it was locked and secured. Grabbed the children,
barricaded our bedroom door and bunker down.
A bit more shouting and a couple more shots and things got quiet.
Needless to say, not a wink was slept for the rest of the night.
At first light I was outside to try to find out what the hell went on.
Turned out, some looters, criminals, tried to break into one of the
apartments and tried to rape a young woman in front of her child.
Somehow, someone heard something and fired some shots and they ran away.
Saving her life.
And that was just the start.
The next morning
they came en masse, stealing fuel out of cars, raiding the few shops
even more and threatening people who were trying to gather some of their
strewn belongings amongst the wreckage. Fighting with owners over their
property and in a couple of cases grabbing things out of their hands
and just walking off with it. Armed with machetes roaming the debris
looking for anything of any value they can lay their hands on. In the
main towns things weren't any better. Shops got broken open, jeweler
stores first, there after, tv stores, the Audi dealership, Yamaha,
Harley Davidson......... and so the list goes on. There was hardly not a
business that weren't affected by the unchecked looting and raiding.
There were 3 people in our area that had for some or other reason,
pistols. How, I don't know? They divided our area up into 3 areas they
could protect.
And during the night it sounded like a mini war zone.
Nobody could sleep and during the day, everybody is busy trying with
some sort of cleaning effort. Now it was 4 days without any proper rest
for anybody in our area. People were loosing it through exhaustion.
I
decided to run with my family. We managed to rescue one of our little
boats, I walked through the most dangerous area in st Martin, Sandy ground, where all the criminals and looters live, to fetch one of
our bikes in a secure area, to get us out.
To give an idea of Sandy ground, the gendarmes don't enter the area. If they do, they go in a group, armed to the teeth.
Also, during the looting festival, the looters raided the gendarmes
depot. Stealing all their weapons, clothing and anything else they could
lay their hands on. We didn't know who was friend or foe anymore.
And so it went throughout the whole island.
Taken with the delayed response in declaring the island a disaster area
and all communications reduced to nothing, it was every man for
himself, with criminals ruling the roost.
Eventually reality and sanity kicked in. By then it was too late.
Military personnel arrived and with them the news media. To show the
world in what poor state we were in. How everything have been destroyed
by the 'hurricane'. People without food and water, hungry and destitute.
NO!!!!
Hungry and destitute by their own stupidity and greed!!!
They don't need food and water! They got all they could loot from all the shops!
And the crying media and bleeding hearts of the international community feeding this stupidity and greed without stopping.
If it wasn't for a strong military presence they would loot the same trucks bringing them more food and water.
It is disgusting and sickening to witness.
So called destitute peoples arriving in their brand new stolen vehicles collecting food rations.
Make no mistake, there is people that is truly destitute. It is also
the people that get last to the distribution points, because they don't
have the new fast cars to get there earlier. I saw them turned away or
the trucks just driving off, empty. The criminals and looters still
first in line. I saw these same really destitute people running to catch
the trucks just for a bottle of water. Being pushed away by the
criminals. People who we've shared our own food with. Baked bread for
and fed because they're hungry, weak and dehydrated. Building fires in
front of their destroyed homes for light at night.
I saw 10 people
hovering around a little kettle in the morning, making one cup of coffee
and sharing that one cup between 10 of them. Each getting a sip for
sustenance. Almost to weak to chase the food trucks.
The ones
desperately needing help, that the media and everyone else ignore. And
when you walk past them, they offering you a sip of their only cup of
coffee. But that is not news. More important to see the rich fleeing the
island, tourists getting free cruise ship and airplane rides all over
the world.
Politicians, trying to convince the world to give them more money to help the poor, that never see one penny of that money.
I truly want to see one dollar being handed to someone in the street
that just lost everything by one of these many big organizations.
The hurricane devastation is one thing. The island being raped by its own people quite another thing.
And through this all, the yachting community on the island is left by
their own devices, to try to recover with no help from anybody. The one
thing that helped build the economy of this island is left to fend for
themselves. Being plundered and charged exorbitant rates to try to
recover their boats. Yachties that have literally lost everything.
Relying on other yachties for help. Where people have supposedly been
given permission by the authorities to loot and raid their yachts. I
caught some of them red handed on my own boat that is stranded.
People have been killed here for the little possessions they managed to save from the hurricane.
This is the true and shocking reality of the aftermath of hurricane Irma.
Judith Pieterse Sept 16th 2017
For those (and many, many more) guys Irma was the start of a big party, a
take whatever and as much as you can -and not only from shops. They
took from anyone t
hey fancied.
People, don't believe what you read in the media, the first people out
after the storm were not after food or water, the looted packs and packs
of alcohol, stole electronics, appliances and cars and ... At night
time there's still shooting going on between those who want to take and
those who try to protect our lives (and at least within the first week
after Irma it was not the police, the army or the gendarmes. We were
lucky to have a Russian ex-army guy living next door.)
But as the
situation here only very slowly improves they start to realize that they
can't eat or drink their winnings. Now they come whining and begging
for food, and the general media shows pictures of those poor 'native'
Caribbean people. Don't believe what you see!
☹️
