The tale of Jamaica’s miraculous escape from Hurricane Matthew will be told by storytellers for generations to come.

If we can ever get past the sad experiences of those who suffered damage from torrential rains in the east, or get over the anxiety that held the nation in its grip for three excruciating days, we will create legends and design all kinds of storyboard outlines recounting how Jamaica was brought to the brink and then let off the hook in what will be one of the great hurricane mystery stories of this century.

No one can fault a hurricane; nor can we blame the meteorologists who predicted with such accuracy that incredible turn to the north that took place almost on the pinhead of exactitude.

It was difficult for anyone to believe that a storm, headed west and even south-west for days across the Caribbean, could have made that wheel and turn as we saw it in the drama that unfolded before our eyes. It was as if the monster had teased us into hopes of a southward fling, then come to a stop, reposition itself, take aim, and head for Jamaica.

For two days those little red asterisks seared into our eyeballs before settling into a leisurely, cruel, snake-like crawl that made the predicted Monday deadline seem a certainty.

It was depressing enough to make me turn off the radio and television on Saturday. But all through the night the telephone calls kept pouring in with the grim messages, “Yes, Matthew is still coming, it is bearing north-east, it won’t even give us a little ease towards the west. It’s keeping to its predicted path between Haiti and Jamaica, it has enough spread on either side to make us history.”

Then on Sunday morning came this amazing reprieve from the monotonous advisories that were spelling doom. It came in the form of the

Daily Bread lesson for Sunday, October 2, 2016 with the day’s reading, “Jesus said to the sea, ‘Peace, be still.’ ” It was the story from St Mark, chapter four, when Jesus, very tired, had got into a fishing boat with his disciples and fallen asleep as they crossed to the other side of the lake.

“Suddenly a strong wind blew up, and the waves began to spill over into the boat, so that it was about to fill with water. The disciples, afraid for their lives, woke up Jesus and cried, ‘Teacher, Teacher, you don’t care that we are about to die?’ ”

And then we are told how in that majestic moment “Jesus stood up and commanded the wind, ‘Be quiet,’ and he said to the waves, ‘Be still.’ The wind died down and there was a great calm. Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Why are you frightened? Have you still no faith?’ ” His companions were stunned. Not even the voluble Peter could make a point. It is recorded that they huddled together and whispered to each other, “What manner of man is this?”

I don’t pretend to read the

Daily Bread every day, but this story, appearing as unexpectedly as it did out of 365 readings in the book, and turning up virtually in the eye of the storm, was a most reassuring coincidence for me. It made me shift my focus from the dire warnings coming out of the Met Office to a sense that there was a higher power always ready and able to prove His worth.

For that entire Sunday morning, and right through the changing of the guard on Sunday evening into Monday, I looked with awe from my window at a sea on the north coast that was as calm as a painted ocean. My anxiety level was still high, but even as the bad news kept circulating, I had found an alternative that was saying to me, “Listen, it doesn’t have to hit us. With all the wind speed and atmospheric pressure and the predictions and the hot temperatures and ideal conditions for strengthening, a master hand was still at work.”

Christians are on the horns of a dilemma here. For how do we give thanks for our deliverance and not consider why the hurricane went elsewhere with its continuing savage onslaught? We certainly don’t have the answer, but sceptic or no, nothing will ever convince me that our miraculous escape and the avoidance of potential death and destruction during the night was not guided by divine intervention.

I believe that every Christian in Jamaica must have said a prayer for Haiti and Cuba, The Bahamas, and our friends and families in Florida. Yet, even as I write this article on Thursday morning, the monster is battering The Bahamas and is marching towards Florida where members of my family are scattered. I don’t know what the outcome will be, but I will continue to cling to the belief that the man in the boat is not sleeping. Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief.

As the story of Jamaica’s remarkable experience is told over and over again, I hope it will find time to include thanks to God, who has given this country a second chance.

It is an amazing story. It began as a mere tropical disturbance off the coast of West Africa a few days ago. It travelled quietly across the Atlantic, but by Wednesday, September 28, 2016 it had entered the Caribbean, and the disturbance which had been watched for a number of days became Tropical Storm Matthew just before 11:00 am on that day.

We paid little attention as it flooded St Lucia and swirled through the Windward Islands. Then the following day, Thursday, September 29,

Hurricane Hunter planes flying through the storm found hurricane force winds. Wow! Suddenly Jamaica sat up and began to take notice. For, not only was it projected to make a direct hit on us, but was predicted to strengthen to Category Four by late evening.

And so it did, and by Friday the warnings were clear, with dangerous musical chair shifts between categories Four and Five sending us racing to the supermarkets and hardware stores.

On Saturday we saw the storm tracking on a south-west path, and we couldn’t quite believe Evan Thompson and his technical teams, or indeed the other international experts, that it would turn north and be on top of Jamaican and Haiti by Monday afternoon — at Category Four. Enough to shiver your timbers.

We watched fascinated as the Government swung into action, teaming up with the National Meteorological Service, the police, the army, the Church, the schools, the disaster relief agencies, parish councillors, Members of Parliament, and the media, to keep Jamaica well informed with a communication programme brilliantly led by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Minister of Local Government Desmond McKenzie, and chief director of Jamaica’s National Meteorological Centre Evan Thompson.

Time spent in front of the television would have exposed us to some of the high technology workings of the weather trackers at the various centres, including our own Jamaican team.

In earlier days hurricane threats were signalled by sirens, telegrams, and flags raised at the post offices. Today, we get ample warning from radio, television, and the Internet fed by satellite images, and from the reconnaissance aircraft manned by daring hurricane hunters who fly into the eye of the storm.

During tropical storms and hurricanes, these intrepid aircraft pilots fly through the eye four to six times releasing a dropsonde which collects temperature, wind speed, wind direction, humidity, and surface pressure data for the tracking centres around the world.

The National Hurricane Center, housed at Florida International University in Miami, is a primary source of forecasts and maintains round-the-clock coverage of all weather systems in the hurricane and tropical storm regions.

Our own meteorological service has developed and now utilises all the analytical skills necessary for monitoring the data being constantly supplied by its own radar station and satellite links, as well as from the international network. The Jamaican model boasts one of the most sophisticated systems and continues to serve the country well as a life-saving, disaster advisory centre.

Hurricane history

Over the last 30 years we have felt the wrath of several hurricanes and storms. The comparative ‘quiet’ season that reigned between Hurricane Charlie on August 17, 1951 and Hurricane Gilbert on September 12, 1988 has been shattered. And the “June too soon” to “September remember” cycle has been put in the bin.

If Gilbert taught us anything, it is that we have to be on our toes at the first siren; lulled out of the complacency we felt in those intervening years between 1951 and 1988.

Gilbert was a sneaky one. It had appeared on the radar only three days before as a tropical storm lurking somewhere in the eastern Caribbean. It reached hurricane intensity on Saturday, September 10.

September 11 was a normal Sunday in Jamaica. People attended church, went to the beach, picnicked at Hope Gardens, enjoyed an anniversary party (in my case), and adjusted their satellite dishes to find the best entertainment station — not

The Weather Channel, if you please.

Hurricane Gilbert slammed into us the following morning with winds up to 125 mph, dismantling any hopes of a swing away from Jamaica. Some 49 people lost their lives and 80 per cent of the housing stock was damaged. To say it took us by surprise, with its sudden acceleration from tropical wave to hurricane, is an understatement.

Flash back to August 17, 1951, and Hurricane Charley — a big one that still lingers on in living memory. The slower methods of tracking that existed then did not give us much time to prepare. A news brief from the Miami weather office had reported the day before that “the first hurricane of the season had boiled up in the Leeward Islands”.

The island’s newspaper broke the news the next morning that “the hurricane reported in the Eastern Caribbean yesterday may hit Jamaica this evening”. Then out of the blue came the hurricane warnings, the sirens, the post office flags, and radio announcements. That was enough to bring out the nails and hammers.

But we were also tuning up for the weekend parties, with Bournemouth Club swinging with Roy Coburn’s orchestra, and movie houses packed, with the Gaiety showing

Baghdad, starring Vincent Price, and Tivoli Theatre featuringThe Walking Hills.

That fateful night Hurricane Charlie ripped through Jamaica leaving 150 dead, Port Royal almost destroyed, Port Morant flattened, 80 per cent of houses damaged, tens of thousands homeless, and the banana industry between 70 per cent and 80 per cent destroyed.

Across the island fruit trees, coconuts, roads, animals, crops, villages, lay devastated from the onslaught.

The wife of the then Governor Sir Hugh Foot was stranded in her car downtown and had to shelter in a house on Giltress Street in Rollington Town during the height of the storm.

Opposition Leader Norman Manley and his wife Edna were marooned in their cottage in the Blue Mountains and had to cut their way through fallen trees to walk down to Mavis Bank from where a police vehicle took them to Kingston the following day.

Jamaicans have demonstrated a striking resilience, fortitude and humour in the face of hurricanes and other disasters under the most intimidating circumstances.

My friend Owen Nation’s sense of humour, in spite of losing his roof from Hurricane Ivan in 2004, was an inspiration. “Lance,” he said with a chuckle, “if you saw a piece of aluminium sheeting flying across your lawn during the hurricane last night it came from my house. And if you saw a man running behind it, that was me.”

Lance Neita is a public and community relations advisor and writer. Send comments to the Observer or lanceneitta@hotmail.com.