Thirty Years Ago on the Beach - #12 - Morning After

The early morning sky couldn't dim the destruction in front of us. As far as the eye could see, nothing looked as it did the morning before. Instead of the bright green foliage that normally framed everything, there was nothing. Nothing at all. No trees, palms, bushes, shrubs...

From the beach, you had an unobstructed view all the way across the morass to the base of the mountains. Nothing larger than the trunk of a tree that had been ripped out of the ground, laying on its side, blocked your vision. With the sun rising over the mountains breaking the night's hold, each passing minute allowed the devastation to come into better focus.

Branches and broken trees littered the ground, leaves of every description, inches deep, lay like carpet covering whatever was below. Looking north or south, you could see miles of beach. Nothing blocked your view.

Carefully walking toward the road, where was the road? It must be there, or had it been destroyed? Slowly approaching where we last saw it, a patch of asphalt beneath a flattened palm tree gave the only sign that the road ever existed. Turning around, we could easily see the bar at the Treehouse. Not a coconut tree! No palm trees! Fences were gone.

Walking back toward the beach at the Native Son Villas, the brick chimney of the fire pit grill was gone. Sand was piled 3 feet high against the sliding glass door of our original villa. The beach was gone. Or maybe better thought of as relocated inland by some 50 yards. Sand peeked out from under the green carpet of leaves.

Gradually we saw other people both up and down the beach coming out to investigate, looking as stunned as we must have looked. Someone up the beach yelled, is everyone okay. No one said anything. It was a question that no one seemed to have an adequate answer. Nothing seemed okay.

We decided to walk down the beach and find out what we could.

Parts 11 to 1
https://negril.com/forum/showthread....-the-storm-out