Storm Warning

Letter dated September 27, 1954

Hurricane Gilda—I’m not sure that’s her correct name and anyway I much prefer the more dignified and matter-of-fact phonetic-alphabet title of George. Furthermore, she held status as a hurricane for only a few hours after her birth and then diminished to the ignominious rating of “a small tropical disturbance.”

We learned yesterday noon that she had made up just off the coast of Spanish Honduras and was headed this way. There wasn’t too much excitement. Everyone brought his boat up into the river. Bucher helped tow some sailboats. People with power boats went out and warned people who had gone to the Cayes for the day so they would come back to town. Merchants boarded up their stores and some people boarded up their homes. We located a Coleman lantern and our flashlights, praised ourselves for having gas stove and icebox, checked our supply of beer, and stayed tuned to the local radio station. However, by eleven at night the storm was sixty miles away and we went on to bed.

Belize is leery of hurricanes. To the best of my knowledge, they’ve had only one…1931…but that almost leveled the town and killed 5,000 people. I have been hearing about it ever since I got here…it is that immediate in people’s minds! And I got a really terrifying description of it this morning from Rose, who was a child at the time. As Bucher commented after being out for a little while this morning, “It’s a wild-eyed bunch of people parading the streets this morning…but they’re all out wandering!”

This morning the storm was reported forty miles from Belize and headed straight this way. However, we’ve had no barometric change and there are reports from Stann Creek, some forty miles south, that they are having increasing wind and rain there. So, the storm may be passing inland below us.

To Bucher and me, the high point of the hurricane excitement is a peak of inconsistency that could be reached nowhere else in the world, I’m sure. To quote directly from the eight o’clock weather broadcast: “The storm is expected to move inland at Belize between nine and ten o’clock this morning. Our next weather report will be at ten o’clock this morning and we will inform you further at that time.”