Jamaica Observer Online, in association with a number of partners, has produced its 2024 Hurricane Season Guide. This is one of the many stories in the supplement which can be accessed here.

A pall of gloom immediately covered the room as I quizzed Elmina Smith on her experience during Hurricane Gilbert, the ferocious storm that flattened Jamaica nearly 36 years ago. It was almost as if a dark cloud swooped in and somehow transported Smith back to the horrific day on September 12, 1988 when the deadly category three storm made landfall. What’s worse is that the elderly woman in her late 70s was being asked to relive that dark past as Hurricane Beryl, a category five storm, threatened the island. Her spirit visibly withered. Still, she mustered up the courage to tell her story.

“I remember it like it was yesterday because some things make such an impact, you don’t easily forget no matter how many years pass. I was in my 40s so mi weather nuff storms, but the way they were talking about this one, I knew it would be different. Still, nothing coulda prepare mi fi Gilbert,” Smith told Observer Online.

“The days leading up to the storm we prepared as best as we could so we bought the tin food, stored up water and of course, secured our homes. We patched a few leaks the roof was having, batten down, trimmed the trees, all a dat. But Gilbert was just terrible.”

Smith, who was living in Portland at the time, recalled the morning of the hurricane. She said it started raining close to 10:00 am and what felt like usual rainfall, quickly turned into torrential showers with heavy gusts of winds as the day progressed.

“Things just got worse and worse. The breeze blow, it blow, it blow. Di hardest I ever feel breeze blow in all my life. Zinc from people rooftops start lifting up and flying everywhere, light posts were falling like flies. I was terrified,” she said. “It was a really scary time. There was no power and as the night came, we were just hoping and praying it would pass. I was worried about my own roof which went eventually. My daughter (who was four at the time) and I had to take shelter in our neighbour’s home.”

Elmina Smith, recalling the morning of Hurricane Glibert, said “the breeze blow, it blow, it blow”.

But while the actual storm was bad, Smith said the aftermath was even worse. She said coming out and seeing the trail of destruction Gilbert left behind was heartbreaking.

“I don’t think a single tree survived Gilbert. Everything blow down. I could see the the entire neighbourhood from my house,” she said. “Then as the news reports started coming in the days after the hurricane, it was clear, Gilbert was a monster menace that had left Jamaica in shambles.”

At the time, Gilbert, which peaked at Category 5 strength before leaving the island, was the first hurricane to make landfall in Jamaica in 37 years. A reported 45 persons lost their lives in the storm while 800,000 persons sought shelter as more than 100,000 homes were destroyed islandwide. It is also widely reported that up to January 1989, hundreds were still living in shelters.

One such person was Margaret Hanson. Hanson, who was 15-years-old at the time, said she was living with family in Maverley, St Andrew. She said very early in the hurricane, the roof to their dwelling was destroyed, prompting an immediate evacuation to the Pembroke Hall High School which was being used as a shelter.

“I was a teenager so I never really know about a hurricane. I just know schools were closed and we got to stay home and that made me happy. But my joy turned to pain very fast as Gilbert blow off the roof of our house clean, clean,” she said. “We had to make our way in the pouring rain to Pembroke Hall High School. It was walking distance but that five-minute walk felt like 50 in those winds. We had to hold each other tight, there were maybe six of us. Luckily, we saw some police who were patrolling the area while we made our way and they carried us to the shelter.”

She recalled that while the shelter offered protection from the brutal winds and heavy rains, conditions were less than ideal. She said naturally, facilities such as the bathroom had to be shared and that discomfort as a teenage girl was enough to send her over the edge.

“I remember waiting in line to take a shower knowing that would be my reality at least for the immediate future as our roof was gone. I knew it would take some time before we could move back in comfortably and, at 15, I hated not being in my own space,” she said, pointing out that as a grown woman in 2004 when Hurricane Ivan threatened, she did everything in her power to make sure her children didn’t have a similar experience.

Margaret Hanson says “We learnt some valuable lessons from Gilbert.”

“I know what that was like and in 2004, I had three kids. The oldest was 13 and I never wanted her to go through what I went through. Having gone through Gilbert, Ivan terrified me but as a parent, I went the extra mile as far as preparations,” she said. “We learnt some valuable lessons from Gilbert and so I used hurricane straps on my roof. But when mi hear bout Ivan, mi put so much block up deh, people think me mad. I secured my home with sandbags, dug a trench for the water to pass through more freely, mi do everything cuz shelter wasn’t on the cards for me and my babies.”

Luckily, Hanson came out of Ivan with minimal damage to her home. However, two days before Hurricane Beryl was forecasted to make landfall near Jamaica, fear visibly washed Hanson’s face as she whispered, “Please God, don’t let it be like Gilbert.”

That was also a sentiment shared by Leroy Clarke. Clarke, now in his 50s, lived through both Gilbert and Ivan. Of the two storms, Gilbert did the most damage, he said.

Still, having also gone through Ivan, Clarke upon hearing of Beryl, said he just couldn’t handle another one. Fortunately for him, he was spared the worst in Kingston, but he said his heart goes out to residents of southern parishes St Elizabeth, Clarendon and Manchester which were the worst affected by the storm.

“We know in Jamaica we cannot escape hurricanes. We just have to hope and pray for the best each season. With Beryl, it looks like this season will be awful and with persons still feeling the effects of Beryl, we just keep praying for the best,” he said. “One thing I am sure of is that we will rise again as a people after every storm. As long as we have life, no Gilbert, no Ivan, no Beryl, no other storm can get we out.”