Gustav Recap

After spending all day Thursday getting the homestead prepared for the worst, we were pleasantly surprised Friday morning to find that Gustav was still wandering around a mere tropical storm. My roommates and I therefore did what any sensible person faced with impending doom hurricanes would do: we slept, read, watched TV (Weather Channel, of course), obsessive-compulsively checked NHC and all other weather outlets online, and periodically ran down to the beach to see what was going on, if anything.



At 5:15pm this was the scene at the beach. Waves more suited to Monterey beaches were rolling in and the wind had picked up to a steady 20 knots or so. Nothing too spectacular by my standards, but the islanders were looking at the waves like "whaaaaat's going on?!"



Meanwhile, a little way down the beach, an optimistic kite surfer was playing in the wind. I'm pretty sure he was just fooling around with the kite and was staying off the water, but who knows. The band of kite surfers on this island is small but psycho. I wouldn't put it past them.



And this? This is that crazy yellow sunset I was telling you about. This photo doesn't even do it justice since the neon yellow of the sky was being projected onto EVERYTHING - cars, buildings, people. It felt like I'd walked into an episode of the Simpsons.



My roommates and I decided to catch the remainder of the sunset down at the beach, where an impromtu gathering of everyone staying in Port Royale was taking place. Wind and water advisories be damned, we were going to watch our sunset! With the proper provisions in hand, it was quite the party.



Channing being artsy. Or something.



I can't tell if he's divining the weather or giving Gustav a piece of his mind.

Finally we decided we'd had enough for the moment so we returned to our apartment to hunker down for the night. We decided to leave our front door open for as long as we could just to get some fresh air in the house, considering the door is positioned downwind of the initial gusts and in a corridor with the other apartments in the complex. That door ended up staying open until just after midnight, when the power went out and people decided it was time for bed. That's right, we were getting 100mph winds from a Category 2 hurricane while our front door was open. Around 2:30am the eye passed the island and from that point on we had the door to the porch open, which until that point had been getting pummeled by wind and rain. My roommate tried to open the front door after the wind had switched and found it to be held closed with the strength of the gusts.

Since the windward side of the house was boarded up and we could only see out the leeward side, we actually spent much of the storm waiting for the storm to get here. Finally fed up around 11pm we headed back out to the beach. Realize that this is only 3 hours before the eye of the storm passed the island. Holy cow. It was windy. Surprisingly there was very little rain, and while we stood there on the seawall in front of the apartments we were getting pelted with sea spray from the ridiculously huge waves down the beach. It felt like tiny needles hitting you, very much like what I imagine being caught in a sandstorm to feel like. Or dermabrasion.

With the exception of some pretty fierce wind action between 2 and 2:30am and some stumbling around in the pitch black by one of my clumsier roommates around 5:30, I slept right through the storm. So after a quick breakfast it was time to survey the damage.



Even the video I took of the waves doesn't do them justice. This is an area I snorkel somewhat frequently, and many of the pictures of sea life that you've seen on this blog have come from this reef. Watching these huge waves roll through an area that is normally flat and calm as a lake just makes me wonder what all the fish are doing. In past hurricanes I know dead fish have been swept up by waves and storm surge, but algae seems to be the only marine casualty this time. Good for them.



This banana plant was the only terrestrial casualty of the storm in our immediate area. Island-wide there was some damage to signs and trees, a bit of flooding in the lowlands (though really, when are they ever NOT flooded?), and power seems to be cut off to the east end of the island for another day while repairs are being done. The sister islands fared a little worse, with considerable damage to trees, roofs, roads, and power lines, but it sounds like there were no casualties and no super-major damage there either. So off Gustav goes on another crazy adventure. Here's hoping future destinations fare as well as we did...

We Made It!

Still alive, everything intact with the unfortunate exception of the palm tree in the front yard. I'm off to hunt for breakfast and to go sightseeing, then I'll give a full update. With pictures.

Getting Windy...

Wind's picking up but still not at top speeds. Storm is slowing down so it's taking a while to get here, giving it an opportunity to strengthen. Another four hours till it picks up with some force. We've actually had the front door open all day to catch the, err, light breeze. Starting to get some heavier gusts in the last couple minutes though so this mark Gustav's arrival. Still have water and power so we've been avoiding the canned food in favor of a continued feast of perishable food we didn't manage to get to earlier. Spent a couple hours down at the beach today watching the waves and the crazy sunset. The whole sky was lemon yellow. No joke. These tropical storms are weird...

Here We Go...

Tropical storm force winds will be hitting in the next hour or two. The peak of the storm will be sometime around 2am tonight. The rain just started as I was writing this, so Channing and I will probably go jump in the pool for a bit then take cover for real. We have 40 minutes until they shut the water off, so the tubs are filled and we're getting our last washings done. Final toilet flushings too...



This morning we parked my car on the Bypass behind the Winchester-Swann. It's a whole 4 feet above sea level, so it's the highest elevation readily available. Obviously I wasn't the only one with that idea. The entire bridge (and "bridge" is a rather generous term) is packed with cars waiting for the storm to hit.



The glass bottom boat I work on is out of the water too, hiding behind the bypass. They've removed the canopy and filled it with water and sandbags to make it heavier. For Dean last year they kept it floating in the canal, filled it with seawater to make it heavier, and dropped about 10 anchors off it to keep it from migrating. Somehow that seems the safer course of action to me, but hopefully Gustav will be a quick, minor flyby. Doesn't look like it, but who knows. Either way, it's time for us to hunker down too. After a quick dip in the pool, that is.

Home Decorating Tips from Arrecife

Wood paneling is totally in this season.

Uh-Oh

This is not an improvement.

In Praise of Earthquakes

You know, there's something to this earthquake thing. All of a sudden a disaster pops up out of nowhere and either you're prepared or you're not. Hurricanes, on the other hand, are an exercise in patience and stress management. For days you agonize over whether you're adequately prepared, if you have enough water and food, what you're going to do with your car, how you're going to deal with matters of hygiene without any power, water, or sewage, how you plan on attaching plywood shutters to your concrete windowframes, and how you're going to amuse yourself for hours in a noisy, stuffy, dark little cave. Earthquake? Bam! You're done.

I bring this up because my Jamaican coworker commented to me today how she can't imagine having to deal with the constant threat of earthquakes looming overhead. As bad as they can be, at least you don't go stir-crazy checking NHC every three hours - which reminds me, another update is ready. Gotta go watch that little orange dot creep a little closer...

Never A Dull Moment...

I was enjoying the lull in business. All two days of it. We've been nonstop busy since the beginning of May and finally, FINALLY the kids disappeared. So those two days were great because this morning I took my twice-daily gander at NHC and saw this:



Wonderful. In case you don't remember from last year, impending doom storms mean we get to pack up the CAOS house and hunker down in some cave while the storm blows over. Today was the last day of operations for the hotel, and tomorrow will be spent packing everything up. And this hotel has a lot of things, let me assure you. Last year we at least had a little warning and had a full week to see that Dean was on its way. 36 hours ago, Gustav was a dinky little tropical wave and now it's a Category 1 hurricane, and expected to be a 3 by the time it reaches us. Don't worry, we're well prepared here in the homestead and have been for months. Ironically, my roommates and I went shopping for all sorts of perishable food yesterday because we wanted to do some real cooking now that everything is slowing down at work. With the storm coming, though, the fridge has to get emptied by Friday morning. I tell you, these next three days we are going to be feasting like kings!

I'll be updating this blog as much as possible over the next few days and after the storm to see how the island and I have fared. I'm sure that those of you in contact with my mother can also call her for any new updates. I have a feeling she'll be glued to the Winchester-Swann's emergency hotline. So yeah, there's never a dull moment here in the Caribbean. Even in the calm before the storm.