Gusty Gustav

So many people including myself got tricked by tropical storm Gustav. At some point in time it shifted from passing north of Jamaica to passing over the dead center of our island. I knew about it but it seemed fairly disorganized for me to be that concerned about it so I went to work Thursday morning as usual. There wasn't much to do there so I was back home by 1pm and started to prepare for the storm.. yes, shame on me for waiting until then to prepare. I had enough tin food from last year so the only thing left was for me to collect some water and cover my stuff with plastic.

As the storm penetrated our little island I watched the news coverage on TV as people called in and reported fires on the power transmission poles, downed power lines and strong gusts of winds. I looked around and noticed I possibly subconsciously arranged what I now dub my 'MacGyver' survival kit on the edge of my pool table. These are items that have probably been all over my apartment for months but now a swiss army knife, 2 lighters, a paper clip, a serrated pocket knife and a $1 coin found them self together. I didn't have a flashlight but I had hundreds of little tea candles that would have provided me with continuous light for weeks if power went away. Was I really prepared?

One thing for sure work had me prepared (supposedly). Before I left work yesterday my boss gave me a so I can work from home if my dsl went or the dialup server died.. how thoughtful. When I reached home I pulled out my laptop and saw a flaw in their plan, my pcmia slot was broken(thats how I received my laptop from them). How could I have forgotten about that? anyway power never went away and I was glad. Everybody who called me told me they didn't have power or water. Up until I went to bed at 2am I had power, water, cable and internet service. I also noticed that there was about 2 feet of water on the main road that was now a river. That was very disturbing but I was high and mostly dry in the ghetto penthouse.

Picking up the pieces

I decided that my apartment, the ghetto penthouse(zinc roof and all), is the tallest structure on my lot was not the place to be with a Category 4 hurricane predicted to directly hit Jamaica. By Saturday night I had moved, wrapped, covered and secured all my worldly possessions I deemed not water resistant and was ready to leave for somewhere more secure(concrete roof).
Noodle and I left early Sunday morning in the rain for her house where I sheltered from the storm. Apart from a big branch hitting and denting my car along with some water coming in through some of her windows we weathered the storm unscaved.

We awoke early Monday morning and went outside to see the damage done. There was an empty lot behind us that had about 8 tall trees, needless to say 0 remain, you can see piece of one of those trees on her neighbours house above, they all snapped like twigs. I didn't hang around long as I was curious as to the damage done to my property. I saw one of my neighbours outside and he said nothing much went on, so after chatting with him a bit I thought I was in the clear. I went upstairs to my place and took a tour, the only things I noticed was some water splashed in through the windows on the eastern side and pieces of ceiling on the tarpaulin I used to cover my bed.

While walking around my place trying to put things back in place I realized I haven't seen the kitchen yet. While preparing for the storm I realized the kitchen(made of board walls and a very sketchy roof) was the weakest link so I closed up everything tight, locked the kitchen door and barricaded it with the pool table. After pulling back the pool table and opening the door I saw sunlight. Keeping in mind the windows were all locked and the place should be dark I knew all was not well and my eye panned down from the hole in the ceiling exposing the sky to the dirty/flooded kitchen below.

I mopped the floor and started cleaning up with my limited water, only to have rain fall an hour later to soak the kitchen all over again. It's a good thing the kitchen is the step-child room of my apartment and it would take over a foot of water before it starts affecting anywhere else in my place. I called the landlady but she didn't seem like she would be in any rush to fix anything, so I moved on and hung out with noodle for the rest of the day.

When I got home later that day I started using as much of the perishable items in the fridge and freezer so they wouldn't go to waste as pictured here me enjoying(kingston 62?? not really) a brewskie by candle light lol. I started trying the clear the food I had in my fridge/freezer since last week Tuesday but it was a job too large for my pot belly. When I reached home yesterday and light still wasn't back yet I took my thermometer to the freezer and it clocked in at 60F so I filled a garbage bag with the x-denizens of my freezer, it broke my heart but the food needed to go. I made my self a sandwich from some of my hurricane tin food and fell asleep around 6pm. When I woke up around 8pm later that night power was back... yay!

I plugged back in everything and tried to watch the news, it had been so many days since I've seen whats going on in Jamaica since I had no tv or radio with this power outage. Of course there was no cable and no signal, I had to go dig up for an antenna so I could receive the local over the air stations. I turned on my desktop pc and tried to go online but the DSL modem wasn't having it. Luckily for me when I came home today there was cable tv and DSL service again, things are coming back to normal. The only thing outstanding is the roof and that's in my landlady's hands.