Hurricane Mitch

From email sent October 25, 1998

Friday I told Alex that this one had our name on it.

We both have been watching the Weather Channel all day. A few minutes ago, Alex arrived with a bemused expression and handed me several pages of printouts from the internet. One is a beautiful color map I really did not need to see showing that Mitch has made its expected turn toward the northwest. The predicted track is a lovely bright red line aimed directly at Belize City.

When I went down to see Alex and María this morning, Alex said that he did not think he could go to the CGM conference in Costa Rica. He is booked to leave Monday afternoon and return Wednesday morning. Current predictions put the storm ashore before dawn Wednesday. No way he could get back.

Callie Young has been in touch with me several times about the storm. The touching thing is that she invited the three of us to sit it out with them in Cayo. She is serious about the invitation. Originally, I thanked her wholeheartedly, but said that we probably would go to the office. Just now when I told Alex about her invitation, he said that we should accept it if the storm comes. It already is stronger than Hattie.

I worried about the dogs, but Alex said we would take them. Callie and Ford have a large fenced yard. I also realized that, if necessary during the height of the storm, we could leave them in the car under the Young’s car port with windows partly open. I could even stay out with them. That’s not today’s problem, however.

Alex and I both started making hurricane lists after the last scare. Mine got so long, I gave up. It is in the office laptop. I’ll check it out tomorrow and go shopping. I’ll also start packing.

This really is a nuisance.

I look around me and wonder if I will have a house to come home to.

 

Report written November 8, 1998

It has been a long two weeks. The first one was spent terrified that Hurricane Mitch would literally wipe out Belize City. The second was spent semi-disoriented from our close escape, putting home and office back in order again.

I exist in a haze of gratitude and a fog of guilt that the storm that was headed for Belize instead devastated our neighbors.

Through Monday and Tuesday, the 26th and 27th of October, it looked as if one of the strongest hurricanes ever was headed straight for Belize. We spent Monday afternoon securing the office. When we left, it was a wasteland of bare desks, duct tape sealing drawers in file cabinets and desks, and great mountains of equipment and furniture tightly wrapped in blue tarpaulins lashed with heavy ropes.

I was so exhausted physically and emotionally when I got home I could not make myself lift a finger to secure the house. The best I could force myself to do was start listing things to do and things to take when we evacuated.

 

Tuesday (October 27th) Mitch was 200 miles directly east of Belize City on a due-west track. We worked frantically through the morning and early afternoon securing everything, with no particular hope that the house would survive a direct hit. Alex’s apartment floods in even minor hurricanes. He brought everything possible upstairs, enveloped in black plastic. My guest bedroom and much of the library were piled shoulder high in lumpy forms of electrical and electronic equipment and heaven knows what else, shrouded in garbage bags.

Upstairs, I encased everything electric with garbage bags, tucked things away into cupboards and drawers where I will be finding them for the next year, and covered beds with shower curtains taped together with our beloved duct tape.

I filled both tubs, the washing machine, and every available container with water. It took forever for the guest tub to fill. I must have gone back to check the level two dozen times. I could have turned off the taps on the next-to-last trip. I flooded Alex and María’s bathroom below it.

Belize plumbers don’t connect a pipe to the overflow outlet on tubs. (We learned immediately after we first arrived here that one does not fill the tub, but instead, bathes in an inch or so of water.) So, if one ever fills a tub too full, the water simply pours into the floor beneath the tub and drips through the cracks. I forgot this little fact. María was wonderfully nonchalant with forgiveness. She might have been less kind about it had she known that all the water would leak out of the tub before we returned, so her private flood was in vain.

 

Ford and Callie Young had invited us to stay with them upcountry. Alex and I agreed that we preferred to shelter closer to Belize City for fear we could not get back from Cayo. Bridges could wash out, making roads impassable. Post-hurricane looting loomed in our minds as almost a greater threat than wind and water.

Tuesday morning, Emilie Bowen called to ask us to join her at the Coca Cola plant up by the airport. It is 13-feet higher than Belize City and about ten miles inland. Alex agreed that this was ideal. The Bowen family owns the Coke plant, Belikin brewery, and half a dozen other major interests.

Most of our hurricane-evacuation supplies were packed in great plastic ice chests and storage boxes. Alex filled the trunk of my car then put the rest into his Trooper. When I turned the key in my front door lock, I truly never expected to see the house again. We set out with him in front and me following in my car with both dogs. I gave one long, last, loving look at my house…

…except it wasn’t the last. Two blocks later, I remembered I had forgotten to re-close the bathroom windows. I signaled Alex and our little convoy returned. By this time, I was so shaken that I drove through the empty streets far less carefully than I usually do. I cut too sharply turning into our driveway and was within a hair of dropping a wheel into the deep ditch alongside it. Alex was not amused.

 

Facilities at the Coke factory were both better and worse than I had expected. People were settling into a huge warehouse among the stacks of cartons of caps stacked along the walls.

The owners of the Bellevue Hotel, sure that their annex would go down in the storm, had sent mattresses up to the factory. We were told to take what we wanted. This was utter luxury. We had expected to sleep on concrete. Alex staked out a corner of the room, put down shipping pallets, and arranged two double mattresses side by side about four feet from one wall. He arranged the chests of food and clothing along the end as a low wall, leaving a small pen for the dogs between the wall and the mattresses.

Emilie had appropriated a 6′ x 10′ space at the end of the room. Here she was ensconced on a small rocking chair she had brought from home. Her Spanish-speaking maid was sitting on a cushion on one side of her, next to the cage with parrots. Emilie’s excitable West Highland Terrier was on her other side. Her Maine Coon kitten, she told me, was locked in her car for safety.

Four or five Belizean Coke employees and their families were established on makeshift beds among the crates. Kevin Bowen (Emilie’s grandson), his delightful girlfriend Caroline, and their huge but gentle Bull Mastiff Bruno, had a mattress between walls of cartons. Two old shipping friends shared a nearby bed. The couple from the Bellevue were the last of the group. The warehouse was large enough so that one had a surprising sense of privacy…along with the boredom.

Once settled, there was nothing to do but read or sleep. I was so ecstatic at finding my exile cushioned by an innerspring mattress that nothing bothered me.

 

Tuesday evening, Emilie came over to say we were invited to Kevin and Caroline’s tailgate party. Their car was pulled up under shelter at the next building, inside which 50 Coke and Belikin trucks had been parked for the duration. We locked our dogs in Alex’s Trooper for the night and joined the group. It was pleasantly convivial, though a little low key because the increasing rain and wind had all of us jittery.

Alex had his laptop and checked the internet regularly for the most detailed bulletins. We realized that the storm had begun to sink slightly southward, but we still were very apprehensive.

The factory manager made his office bathroom in an adjacent building available to us. It was a longish trek through the rain, but a welcome facility. I also used the workmen’s bathroom on the ground level once during the night.

Amber was not happy at being relegated to the car. Missy took it in stride. We did not dare keep them inside during the night. If anyone had approached us, Missy would have barked and might have attacked. Amber’s barking from the car worried María, but I never heard a thing. It was as restful a night as I would have had at home—almost.

 

The surprise of the next morning (October 28th) was returning from early ablutions to find Alex kneeling over his camp stove in the dog’s compound boiling water for coffee. I had not expected such luxury.

After breakfast, we let the dogs out of their nighttime prison. We reconvened with the dogs in their little pen and us on the mattresses to discuss plans. The storm still was moving south, but was so slow and so erratic that we were warned we still were in great danger. We decided to go home for a few hours and return for the night. We tidied our gear and left it surrounding our little compound.

The house still was standing, unlooted. The new PUP Government proclaimed a curfew and had police and Belize Defense Force troops patrolling the streets. Looters were picked up, taken before a makeshift Magistrate’s court, and slapped into prison without delay.

We had welcome showers, and the dogs had a chance to run free. Not that they much wanted to do it in our flooded yard. Missy had controlled herself for almost 24-hours by the time we brought her home. Amber, somewhat older, had better sense.

We luxuriated in the few hours at home. We gathered some forgotten items, packed clean clothes, and reluctantly set out for our shelter again. We did not know whether the storm would turn back to us, but were afraid that heavy rains and possible sea surge would flood the road and make it impossible for us to flee later if we had to.

Our same parking place under shelter was waiting for us at the warehouse. Friends greeted us. It was almost like returning home. The dogs settled down in their little pen without complaint. I took out the book I was trying unsuccessfully to finish.

That night there was another tailgate party. It was the tailgate of Kevin’s vehicle and Bruno was tethered to it, hoping (successfully) for an occasional tasty morsel. Good food, good companionship, and a feeling that we just might be out of danger.

 

Thursday morning (October 29th), the storm remained stationary over the Northern coast of Honduras. It already had virtually wiped out the Bay Islands. Reports remained inconclusive: Mitch could move farther inland and break up over the Honduran mountains or it could cut across to the coast, rebuild over water, and proceed up the coast of Belize and the Yucatan peninsula. We decided to return home.

Kevin drove into town early and reported back that the highway was impassable for low cars. We packed all our gear. We put things we would need if we had to return into my car and left it locked and under shelter, out of the way of any possible company activity. We piled our ice chest, rain gear, and things we would need at home into Alex’s Trooper. I sat in the back seat with the dogs. And back home we went.

 

I was vaguely disoriented from the pressure of the past few days and from the unfamiliar look of my home. We had moved living room furniture away from the windows as best we could. Alex described the room as looking as if I had hired a crack-head interior decorator. Every flat surface throughout the house was piled with strange shapes shrouded in black plastic. Kitchen counters were devoid of familiar appliances, but cluttered with bottles of stored water. Part of my feeling of unreality may have been from being utterly alone for the first time in days. Pleasant but strange.

I went down to Alex and María’s for lunch. It was what we had planned to fix if we had remained in the shelter: a large salad using potatoes María had baked, tuna I supplied, the last two of the hard boiled eggs I took up with us, and lettuce, and sliced onion/celery/green pepper I provided. Alex opened beers for each of us, and we had a fine, balanced meal. The cushions for María’s furniture were upstairs, enveloped in plastic, but she retrieved them after lunch because sitting on slats was not the height of comfort.

We all doped off for the rest of the day. We unpacked only things we needed to use; we did not dare resettle. The Weather Channel and Internet still were predicting that Mitch might turn north back up along the coast of Belize. We thought it was unlikely and that, even if this happened, the storm would not be strong enough to force us to leave the house. But it made life seem relatively precarious.

I spent unnecessary hours searching for the dog sheet and the pillows for my legs. I had put them all into a large, black garbage bag and, I am certain, put them somewhere in my work room. I found three garbage bags of pillows, but not the right one. I searched everywhere. I was irrationally determined to find them and wasted far too much time and emotional strength. I finally settled with a clean dog sheet and a different set of pillows—as I should have done to begin with.

My bedroom looked fairly normal since Alex had set up my TV again. The only channel we could get was the Weather Channel. This had been a godsend, of course. However, when I found myself showered and propped up in bed with my dogs on the dog sheet, it seemed strange to be reading instead of watching TV.

 

We stayed at home on Friday (October 30th). I wrote an email to Carli to reassure her that we were safe, but had no idea when I could get it through to her. Apparently everyone in the city was working email. I couldn’t even get my new messages. Alex explained that the telephone company closed down their email server on Monday. The internet remained open.

I fixed us smothered chicken for dinner. I thought that, with an avocado salad, would be a good antidote to “hurricane fever.”

About six that evening, María telephoned up from their apartment downstairs to say that the water was within an inch of their threshold. Alex was sleeping; should she wake him? I said that indeed she should. She did. Alex growled, “High tide”—and went back to sleep. Outside my front window, water on the street was barely below the top of the seawall and waves were breaking heavily over it. I put on my rubber boots and clomped downstairs to see what I could do to help María secure the furniture left in their apartment.

Alex roused himself, put on his own boots, and went outside to see which direction the water was flowing. He came back to report that it was fresh water, runoff from swollen rivers and rain, rather than sea surge. He dipped a glass of water from his front doorstep and forced his reluctant mother to taste it. Right. It was fresh with only the slightest tinge of salt. Unfortunately, neap tides and runoff flooded Belize twice daily for a week. A&M accepted my invitation to spend the night(s) in my guest room.

Alex and María did what further securing they could and moved upstairs for the night. Here they had to move great unidentifiable-black-plastic-sheathed masses off the double bed to clear it for sleeping.

Alex’s final check of the situation downstairs showed the water a half inch below the level of their apartment floor. Saturday morning (October 31st) brought a new high tide and the same water level. A&M remained upstairs. I suggested that Alex find one of his TV’s and set it up in my library next to the guest room. He found two chairs and a few feet of space to establish a private area for María and himself.

 

Sunday (November 1st), the water was not quite as high, and we finally started putting our homes back in order. María’s brother Elmer—who spent the hurricane in Orange Walk with their sister Miriam—came to help A&M move gear back downstairs. By the end of the day, that side of the house looked almost normal.

That same morning, my missing bag of pillows surfaced. I had put the bag in my desk chair. It had slipped off and settled in the knee hole. The room was dim, the site was dark, the bag was black. I literally stumbled over it before I saw it.

There still are a few things I haven’t found, but today’s mystery will be tomorrow’s happy surprise.

 

You did not need this much information, but I find it easier to write than to edit. Perhaps it will entertain you. We were incredibly lucky. At one point when the threat was greatest, I remarked to myself that I was too old to go through this foolishness again. Then I realized that my experience in 1961’s Hurricane Hattie here and the pragmatism of age put me in far better shape than many people to cope. I must say, I am just as glad that the experience eluded us.

Belize had only minor damage as the storm passed. Most of the docks on Ambergris Caye and Caye Chapel washed away. There was some beach erosion. Aside from that, tourism was not hurt. There was a lot of cleaning up of debris to be done, but little structural damage. The rains and rising rivers have caused flooding upcountry. However, people had time to leave their homes and disaster teams already were prepared for a far greater emergency.

The unbelievable destruction was in Honduras and Nicaragua, with some in Guatemala and Salvador. The three bridges washed out on the main highway between Guatemala City and the ports of Puerto Barrios and Santo Tomás. They are completely isolated. Boats from Punta Gorda, Belize, take load after load of groceries, clothing, etc., across to them daily.

We received a heartbreakingly detailed fax from the CGM and Air France agent in Tegucigalpa. As Guy describes the situation in Honduras, it is far worse than even the TV news reports. He wrote to all their fellow agents, begging for any kind of help. As it happens, Belize is fully mobilized with food/clothing collection, relief accounts in all the banks, and volunteers going over to work in Honduras. I think everyone here has a strong sense of “There, but for the Grace of God, go I.”