Duhaney Pen residents reminisce as they prepare for storm
Published:Thursday | November 4, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
LIKE A man wielding a sledgehammer, the waves persistently crashed against the shores in Duhaney Pen, St Thomas, with persistent force, making residents in the seaside town nervous as Tropical Storm Tomas prepares to pass by Jamaica.
Duhaney Pen is used to the sound of the angry sea. The community is also used to regular news bulletins of impending storms. These days, residents are glued to their radios. Tomas may come and no one wants to be caught off-guard.
Florence Tingle-Williams was stung by dangerous Hurricane Dean in 2007. She lost her home and possessions, and was lucky to escape with her life.
"In the 30 years I have lived here, I have not experienced such weather," the 60-year-old told The Gleaner.
"Dat morning is a morning to remember and cyaah come out a mi mind until death," Tingle-Willams said.
As she told The Gleaner of the horrific experience, Tingle-Willams summoned divine intervention, pleading with God to keep the tempest at sea.
"God, yuh know mi cyaah tek another one," she said, while relaxing on the veranda of her board house.
"Dean leave mi like a tree without leaves. It took everything. All now I don't come back on my feet and I don't know when," Tingle-Willams said.
"Last night, I spent di whole night pon mi knees praying. I said, 'Jesus, you know my troubles and you know I can't take no more'," she recounted.
The Meteorological Service has extended a tropical storm warning for Jamaica as Tomas moves on a path between Jamaica and Haiti. The storm is expected to dump several inches of rainfall on eastern parishes.
Tingle-Willams said waves which made the 200-metre journey from the beachfront rose as high as a coconut tree, fuelled by Dean's fury.
"The wave push wi off di veranda and lick wi inna di yard. Everything wash out. Is people affi give wi clothes," the elderly woman said.
She said it was a miracle that logs which were being swept inland by the sea did not strike anyone or it would have been certain death.
No fortress
Robert Goode, a 59-year-old former resident of Duhaney Pen, remembers the fateful morning when Dean visited in 2007.
"I lost everything, too. I lost furniture, my tools, money ... everything," he said.
Goode lived in a four-bedroom board house and his family and Tingle-Willams sought refuge there when the waves first knocked on her back door. But Goode's house was no fortress. The powerful waves flattened the structure and threatened to take the occupants back to sea.
Goode showed The Gleaner a rusting refrigerator which, he said, had not yet been used at the time when it was violently washed from his house by the waves. Old television sets, a home entertainment set and a corroding stove in the yard also tell the tale.
He said he and his family were lucky to escape that storm in Duhaney Pen and had to endure the indignity of depending on others for survival.
"Not even mi brother clothes mi nuh wear, and mi affi wear stranger clothes," Goode said.
Since Dean, Goode has relocated his family to higher ground. Tingle-Willams, on the other hand, still lives close to the sea. She is hoping Tomas will stay away and that she will one day get assistance to relocate or build a better place to call home.
"We don't get no help from nobody all now. Nobody nuh come and ask how unnu manage. Bruce (Golding) come here and James (Robertson) and they stood right there on the veranda and say dem woulda help wi. Not even a tent, nuttin. Wi nuh see or hear from dem since," Tingle-Willams said.