‘I never book dah flight deh’
Man escapes death by jumping from house in killer storm
WHEN Kenrick Smith saw his house lifting off the ground in the fury of Hurricane Melissa last Tuesday, instinct kicked in and he jumped from it. Had it not been for that quick action, Smith might not have survived as his home has been reduced to rubble.
According to the Petersfield, Westmoreland, resident, he did everything possible to prepare for the powerful Category Five weather system, which tore through the parish on Tuesday afternoon with winds reaching 185 miles per hour.
“I do all my best to strap and tie down and see to it that the end dem of the zinc very protected,” Smith told the Jamaica Observer. “Mi did hear prime minister tell us that it is a powerful storm and it’s Category Five, so I did all my best, and I went around and cut tree for my neighbour dem to protect dem.”
Still, that wasn’t enough.
“The storm come…and begin to lift up the house…and ram it back down two times and then push it off the block. Then, then it went away, and when it went away I take all my barrel weh deh pon one side and put on the side weh hoist up, for it to keep down the house,” Smith shared.
Moments later, he said, the house began to rise again, but this time it was the entire structure.
“Mi see the house a go up like a one airline [a] take off. So mi seh, ‘But wait, I never book dah flight yah, so mi have to come off a dis flight,’ and I went out through the back door. Is through the plane back door mi come out,” Smith explained light-heartedly, despite his loss.
Noting that he’d left all his documents, money and belongings, Smith said he sought shelter with a neighbour in what he described as the “strongest house” nearby.
The carpenter by trade said he had just finished repairing his house days before the storm.
“[I] did a full repair, drop top and take up, cause unuh seh we have to have a firm top so the storm couldn’t move the top, so [the storm] said, ‘Alright then, this house is very strong so I gonna take up everything then.’”
He sustained bruises to his arm while escaping, but otherwise was unharmed.
“When I saw the house come off the block, my mind told me to get myself out of there,” he said.
Now standing among the ruins of what was once his home and picking up the pieces in high spirits, Smith is appealing for materials to rebuild.
