HURRICANE IVAN - SEPTEMBER 11-12, 2004 - MEMORIES??? Pictures???

I remember how I watched this hurricane spawn off the African coast and make a beeline for Jamaica. I remember how all of us at the time were praying and hoping that Ivan would somehow change course. Thankfully, it did wobble just enough West, off of it's bulls-eye course, on September 10 that the eye stayed south of Jamaica by about 20 miles. The destruction and loss of life was bad enough and certainly the west end took a hit, but it could have been so much worse.

This image is from the NHC archives.

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I belive this was the first time I saw Rob as he did webcasts from his back yard. Been hooked on webcasts ever since.

The following is a letter I wrote shortly after Hurricane Ivan made landfall in northwest Florida. As I look back the letter sounds selfish in some ways but it was heartfelt when I wrote it. Since that fateful night things are different, I am different, our trip to Jamaica was saved due to the hard work of all the workers at Tensing Pen and Negril getting things put back together. Our house as since been repaired, our yard is beautiful, we are well and yes we are in the same house, no we did not move, we finally realized this is our home and we will rebuilt that home. We now know how to prepare for events like this. I can only hope that know one ever has to experience a night like that. While it was hard on us I can't even imagine how some of the families in countries like Jamaica could ever recover.


The Sheer Terror and Heart Break of Hurricane Ivan

I writing this to hopefully help myself stop feeling sorry for myself, to hope to make others understand the terror and heartbreak the Jamaican’s, Cayman’s, Grenadine’s and Northwest Floridan’s went through on those fateful days and nights of Hurricane Ivan. I have been through Hurricanes Camille, Eloise, Erin, Opal and other smaller hurricanes but never anything like this. Some have done damage to my house, some have done damage to Jamaica but none have every taken everything all in the same year or much less by the same storm.

Ivan has most probably taken not only my trip to the beautiful Negril and Tensing Pen as we were booked in the Cove Cottage Nov 26th to Dec 5th. Cove Cottage was destroyed by Ivan and even though Tensing Pen plans to be open by November 1st it is unlikely that they will have rebuilt Cove Cottage by the time our trip comes and they are full in the other remaining units.

Now closer to home, we have spent 10 years landscaping our house and in the course of 12 hours we lost everything. We had 15 beautiful shade trees none of which are left, fence completely destroyed, other bushes, shrubs and flower beds were destroyed by falling trees, fencing or roof. Oh yeah we lost the roof! The carpet is ruined by the water the came through the doors, windows and other cracks. The wind was so hard it blew the water right in, starting over here in Destin Florida.

Some people have said we were lucky because the house was ok but I don’t see it that way if the house was gone I could rebuild it in 6 months but all the work on the exterior of my house I could never replace in a life time. Some of the shade trees were 30 to 50 years old, even if I replant they won’t be back in my lifetime. The face of my property will never be the same and that goes for the face of Destin, Navarre, Pensacola, Gulf Breeze, Perdido Key and Gulf Shores.

My sister in law last even more as two feet of storm surge came into their house ruining everything. They are in Gulf Breeze across the Santa Rosa Sound from Pensacola Beach. For the storm surge to get to their house if first had to go all the way across Pensacola Beach then through the Santa Rosa Sound then through a ½ mile of houses then reaching theirs. They lost everything, and I mean everything. There only possessions are what they took to the shelter that night.

I am in total shock and heartbreak over the losses. I know once we have cleaned up and put things back together we will be moving. This will never be home again! On the positive side you find out who your real friends are. My best Friend is from Nashville Tennessee and has been going to Negril with us for over 10 years. He and his family were following Hurricane Ivan and knew the Damage the Islands had already suffered and feared for us. On the morning after Ivan the called to see if we were ok, we told them our story. He then said he had a truck loaded with a generator for Power, a window ac, food, water, chain saws and fuel and were headed our way to help in clean up. Then the owner of our company called to see how the store was and how the other employees and I fared as they are a hour east of us and had little damage. Once again I told him our story the other employees had fared well, the store was fine but our house looked like a bomb had gone off. We are in the fishing industry and have a walk in cooler full of frozen bait that was thawing and he said he had two guys to come and get the bait that day. Once he heard of our dilemma he said he would put together a work crew and be at the house in less than 2 hours. They arrived just before my friend and his dad From Nashville Tennessee that had left a 3 in the morning. That afternoon my boss, the manage of our Panama city store, manager of my Port St Joe store and Warehouse manager plus Corey and his dad and myself managed to cut our way thought the forest of down trees to the house.

What those guys did in a day would have taken me by my self to Christmas but now I left with a naked house on a bare loft with no roof or carpet. Don’t get me wrong I am so grateful to those guys as I could never pay them back for their efforts I broke down in tears when they showed up and when they left, but it is still so heartbreaking. I cannot imagine how all those in the tiny island nations every made it through theirs nights of horror. How will they ever clean up and get back to normal? What is normal?

I pray for my wife Mary our 2 beagles Sadie and Pooh Bear, all the Jamaican’s, the other Islanders, Floridian’s and myself to somehow come out of this better and stronger. Better and stronger? What do they mean? I hear this all the time it will make you better and stronger but I don’t know what it means.

The tally on Ivan category 5 Hurricane 165 mile per hour winds, storm surge 20 feet in places, 50 foot waves, dozens of tornadoes, devastation from the Antilles through the Caribbean and into the states from Florida to New York. Massive loss of life, one is one to many, countless dollars lost and lives changed forever.

Thankful we are alive, thankful our friends in Jamaica are alive, thankful our friends in the US are alive, thankful we have made new friends in our Neighborhood we never knew existed. Heartbroken over our losses.

Please forgive my but these are just a few of my thoughts in the aftermath of hurricane Ivan. I am exhausted and sore, I did not know some of these muscles existed. There are weeks of clean up left, I only pray that somehow Tensing Pen can rebuild Cove Cottage and that I can get to Negril for some much need relaxation.

Irie

Tim Broom

Sept 19, 2004
6:59 PM

Where did the tree go, it was there a second ago??

I was watching live from CoCoLapalm's Live Cam, when Ivan hit....I grabbed two screen shots, when a tree disappeared before my eyes......I couldn't believe it!

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NRL Measures Record Wave during Hurricane Ivan
August 4, 2005
Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory—Stennis Space Center (NRL-SSC) measured a record-size ocean wave when the eye of Hurricane Ivan passed over NRL moorings deployed last May in the Gulf of Mexico. The possibility of a super wave is often suggested by anecdotal evidence such as damage caused by Hurricane Ivan in September of 2004 to an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico that was nearly 80 feet above the ocean surface. Hence, some of the destruction done by Ivan has been attributed to a rogue wave. According to industry and national weather sources, the damage done by waves during Ivan has been on the extreme high end for a category 4 hurricane.

During NRL’s Slope to Shelf Energetics and Exchange Dynamics (SEED) field experiment, six current profiler moorings that also contained wave/tide gauges (Sea-Bird Electronics SBE 26) were deployed on the continental shelf at water depths ranging between 60 and 90 meters (197-295 feet) just west of the DeSoto Canyon, about 100 miles south of Mobile Bay, Alabama. An additional eight deep moorings were deployed down the shelf slope but did not contain wave/tide gauges. Fortuitously, between 8:00 pm CDST and midnight on September 15, the eye of Ivan passed through the center of the array, and almost directly over moorings 2, 5, 8, and 11. Historically, instruments in the ocean do not even survive near misses of such powerful storms, much less direct hits. Fortunately, all of the SEED moorings survived this powerful storm, and provided the best ocean measurements of currents and waves ever obtained directly under a major hurricane.
During the approach of Ivan, a moored buoy (ID 42040), deployed by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC) near the west side of the SEED array, registered a significant wave height of 16.0 meters (53 feet). Unfortunately, the NDBC buoy broke loose and was set adrift on September 15 at 5:00 pm CDST, just before the arrival of the main force of the hurricane. According to a spokesman at NDBC, this wave height appears to be the largest ever reported by NDBC from a hurricane and comes within a few tenths of a meter of NDBC’s all-time record reported in the North Pacific. Note that the wave heights reported by the NDBC buoys are derived from wave spectra.

Thanks all for your pictures, experiences, and memories!

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Originally Posted by Rambo

Where did the tree go, it was there a second ago??

I was watching live from CoCoLapalm's Live Cam, when Ivan hit....I grabbed two screen shots, when a tree disappeared before my eyes......I couldn't believe it!

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Incredible! Looks like the tree was snapped in half!

Ironically I was desperate to reach friends in Grand Cayman. I managed to have a friend go look for another friend and all were safe, although Brian did have a sail boat in his yard, a mile and half inland. And a few days later it made land fall here, in Prince Edward Island , Canada but first cut a path across Nova Scotia. I am ashamed to say I did not prepare our cottag and ourselves enough. We hadn't even gassed up the van. Since then I take Hurricanes seriously even here in the North East of Canada. Ivan landed as Cat 1. Cayman however didn't fare as well. At one point the sea separated Grand Cayman into 2 islands with lots and lots of destruction that is still visible there.

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Originally Posted by Weathermon & Mi Lady

Incredible! Looks like the tree was snapped in half!

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yes and before it left it wasnt bending....I blinked and it was just gone...looks like about 2 ft from the bottom is left.......camera went dead shortly after............we were one of the first planes into MoBay after Gilbert did its thing in '88....what a mess..... Jamaicans just keep fightin back...no place to go, they gotta keep fightin.......God give 'em strength.......

We had tickets for the 13th, knowing Mariposa had a generator and cistern and that we could live rough and not become a burden we traveled, our baggage included boots and gloves and hammers and nails and rechargeable tools, foiled from checking a chain saw onto flight in the states I found by accident in MoBay the very same model so all of my bars and chains in my luggage worked, my battery powered sawzall was a great tool, in advance we had told friends in the hills to empty our igloos and stock them with ice - as soon as ice became available we would make mad dashes into the hills with a jeep full of ice to re-stock, we had an Caribbean Cruiser and our week was spent going into the hills to help reroof houses and save what of a orchard we could, I became known as SawMon everywhere we went we cleared roads and cut trees out of yards, Niah after sheltering inside the concrete bar in Wavez rebuilt, after helping Pat at the Boat Bar rebuild the decision was made to rebuild everything and the old boat disappeared, the wall at Mom's was under 6 feet of sand and they had to dig back down to the bar, Gino's was the first restaurant re-opened and the owners of Catcha had dinner there and I believe that was where the idea of Ivan's was born, not a leaf on a tree made for no shade to stand or park in it was hot hot hot, I'll always remember bringing a bunch of cell phones back to the room to charge and the incessant ringing as they took power,,,,, but what that trip showed me was the spirit of the Jamaican people,,,, we lost our business we'll build back twice as big, we lost our house we'll build back better,,,,, I remember that the storm combined with the following drought raised the price of tomatoes to unheard of levels the following Feb, the same resulting in all of the leaves on the ground had fires burning in the hills with smoke plumes every few miles the following Feb,,, some trips are different than others, some trips you do not take you give,,,
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Peachy' s burial was cancelled due to Hurricane Ivan and he was buried the following weekend on September 18th:(

And while yesterday marked the 9th anniversary of Ivan, today marks the 25th anniversary of Gilbert in 1988 - I was here for both and to paraphrase what the man said about Charlie back in 1951, "Ivan was a bwoy!" in comparison to Gilbert...

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/...maica_15053181

Gilbert took my house and four of my boats.

As for the "extremely active season" predictions earlier this year from the "experts", here are some interesting quotes:

"No Atlantic Hurricane by August in First Time in 11 Years"

"With records going back to 1851, Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the U.S. National Hurricane Center, said there had been only 17 years when the first Atlantic hurricane formed after Sept. 4."

"The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters had predicted would be more active than normal, has turned out to be something of a dud so far as an unusual calm hangs over the tropics.

As the season heads into the historic peak for activity, it may even enter the record books as marking the quietest start to any Atlantic hurricane season in decades."


"It certainly looks like pretty much of a forecast bust," said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at the Weather Underground."

And so much for the early predictions... (grin)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rob

As for the "extremely active season" predictions earlier this year from the "experts", here are some interesting quotes:

"No Atlantic Hurricane by August in First Time in 11 Years"

"With records going back to 1851, Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the U.S. National Hurricane Center, said there had been only 17 years when the first Atlantic hurricane formed after Sept. 4."

"The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters had predicted would be more active than normal, has turned out to be something of a dud so far as an unusual calm hangs over the tropics.

As the season heads into the historic peak for activity, it may even enter the record books as marking the quietest start to any Atlantic hurricane season in decades."


"It certainly looks like pretty much of a forecast bust," said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at the Weather Underground."

And so much for the early predictions... (grin)

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So, true, weather forecasting is not an exact science. I get a kick here because one TV station has an 8 day forecast! Maybe in San Diego but not in Michigan. How about an 8 hour forecast instead!

Now there is a Tropical Storm heading for Nova Scotia, of all places!

Chet and Coleen thanks for sharing your experience and your pictures!

i too remember Gilbert -- the island dotted with blue tents and tarps . . . it was a grim time

fortunately i arrived right after Gilbert --- spent 2 days in my hotel room giving out everything from car parts to soap that folks asked me to bring - i had special custom's considerations and no baggage limit in those days

i was there for Dennis and Emily --- no one prepares for storms like Jamaicans --- the grocery store was stripped bare and there was not a candle to be found

On the day of our departure after spending a week in Grand Caymen, our flight home was cancelled. For the remaining guests, the hotel instructed us to leave our luggage in the bathtub and report to the lobby with a blanket and a pillow. They handed us a bag lunch and sent us in buses to a hurricane shelter and told us they would be back to pick us up. 4 days later of no change of clothes, rationed food, being amongst people who lost everything, caskets out of the ground, homes ruined, pure devastation, fights between Caymanians and Jamaicans (Jamaicans were being blamed for the looting) we were finally picked up.

Airport was ruined so airplanes were only taking off in daylight hours and only flying to Miami. After sending my mom and aunt on a flight to MIA, my sister and I went back to the hotel to get our stuff to then try to rush to airport but it was too dark for the planes to take off. It was chaotic, Jamaicans were told to report to the airport where Air Jamaica was to pick them up so there were loads of people just roaming the street. My sister and I went to the fire station and while the station was ruined they had a trickle of fresh water so we were able to do a quick splash. They also told us to get off the streets since there was a curfew.

Not knowing where to go, we ended up at the Marriott in Gtown which had also been destroyed. The mgr allowed us to sleep in the lobby until morning. Bonus was that they had a generator so they gave us cheese sandwiches and cold beer. We made it to the airport early in the morning and while we started off in the first 20, we were slowly pushed back since they were taking elderly and parents with children. It was now afternoon and we knew our hopes of getting home on this day were diminishing until I heard a man yell out that he had room on his plane to Tampa. We got on the last 2 seats on the private plane that was owned by the brother of the manager of Ritz Carloton- he was flying supplies down and on his return were taking people back. We finally got to Tampa and realized how dirty and funky we were but didn't stop us from pigging out at some restaurant before our flight back to DC.

I'll never forget Hurricane Ivan.

Jamerican, that quite a story.

And today Tropical Storm Gabriel is cutting a path through Nova Scotia and over us here in Eastern Prince Edward Island. Nothing like when Ivan hit here but enough wind and rain that we may loose power which happens here quite often

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Originally Posted by Jamerican71

On the day of our departure after spending a week in Grand Caymen, our flight home was cancelled. For the remaining guests, the hotel instructed us to leave our luggage in the bathtub and report to the lobby with a blanket and a pillow. They handed us a bag lunch and sent us in buses to a hurricane shelter and told us they would be back to pick us up. 4 days later of no change of clothes, rationed food, being amongst people who lost everything, caskets out of the ground, homes ruined, pure devastation, fights between Caymanians and Jamaicans (Jamaicans were being blamed for the looting) we were finally picked up.

Airport was ruined so airplanes were only taking off in daylight hours and only flying to Miami. After sending my mom and aunt on a flight to MIA, my sister and I went back to the hotel to get our stuff to then try to rush to airport but it was too dark for the planes to take off. It was chaotic, Jamaicans were told to report to the airport where Air Jamaica was to pick them up so there were loads of people just roaming the street. My sister and I went to the fire station and while the station was ruined they had a trickle of fresh water so we were able to do a quick splash. They also told us to get off the streets since there was a curfew.

Not knowing where to go, we ended up at the Marriott in Gtown which had also been destroyed. The mgr allowed us to sleep in the lobby until morning. Bonus was that they had a generator so they gave us cheese sandwiches and cold beer. We made it to the airport early in the morning and while we started off in the first 20, we were slowly pushed back since they were taking elderly and parents with children. It was now afternoon and we knew our hopes of getting home on this day were diminishing until I heard a man yell out that he had room on his plane to Tampa. We got on the last 2 seats on the private plane that was owned by the brother of the manager of Ritz Carloton- he was flying supplies down and on his return were taking people back. We finally got to Tampa and realized how dirty and funky we were but didn't stop us from pigging out at some restaurant before our flight back to DC.

I'll never forget Hurricane Ivan.

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WOW! Thanks for sharing your experience!