Not the most encouraging update we could have received.
There was no electricity, no fridge and the radio was on battery as long as that lasted. The roof kept wanting to come off. The sea was coming in fora frontal assault. Howling winds, sideways rains, thunder and lightning like you have never experienced. It was about that time we noticed the windows.
Never having been in a hurricane, we had no idea what to expect. And while the groundsman had mentioned plywood and the windows, we really didn't put it together until we saw it.
At this time, late afternoon, there was still enough light to detect the windows in the villa. The glass in the larger picture windows were bowing in. They were being bent inwards as if trying to come out of their frames. It was possible to push back on the window glass and feel it move back toward the outside. And then we thought about what we were doing and got away from the windows. The glass could easily shatter and severely hurt or even kill anyone nearby.
We called the groundsman and he went to get the tape. We then made big tape X's on the windows to help keep them from bending in. Thus we found out, inour giddy stupidity, why there are X's on glass panes during hurricanes.
As the deep booming sound of the roof trying to rip itself continued every 30 seconds or so, we noticed an increasing amount of dust on the floor. At first we just thought it was brought in by the wind. But it was collecting too evenly over the entire house to be wind. The dust that had been in the roof for years was now depositing itself. It had been raining down on us all for hours. There was no way to stop it and pointless to clean it.
We had been in the hurricane winds for about 4 hours now and things were still building. The wind was getting stronger. The rain was getting heavier. The light outside was being blocked now by the dark sky. We could only see outside when the lightning flashed. Candles were our only way to get light inside...
It was around 5 when we started to hope that the wind could not get much stronger. We couldn't take it much longer but of course we had no choice.
There was a constant mishmash of sounds outside, dull thumps, sharp shattering and neverending smashing. Most of the sounds were coming from the northern wall and the roof. The northern wall sound was a key to help us understand the hurricane.
Finding an island map representation on a wall picture at the top of the steps, we tried to figure out where the hurricane and how much was left. The sound had been coming from the northern wall for the most part today,this had been a constant.
Not knowing which way a hurricane spun, we tried to duplicate what winds could be creating the sounds the sounds we were hearing. Spinning our fingers in a circular motion over the island map, it became apparent that the winds were coming at us from the north due to a counterclockwise rotation of the hurricane. There was no other way to explain it. And it also became apparent that Negril was going to be getting close to a direct hit! The eye would pass over close to us otherwise the winds would have been more varied.
There is no way to determine the size of a hurricane by spinning your fingers over a map, so we sat back and waited to see if our wind predictions would hold true. We didn't have to wait long because other things drew our attention...
Parts 4, 3, 2 and 1
https://negril.com/forum/showthread....4-Gilbert-hits
