Hurricane Edith

Edith looked like a possibility from the beginning. But then, so have dozens of others.

The Tenth of September, formerly The Battle of St. George’s Caye Day, now National Day), is still the country’s big holiday celebration. The Premier broke tradition—or established a new one—by giving his National-Day speech from Independence Hill, the National Assembly in the new capital of Belmopan.

As he concluded—as Hurricane Edith went inland in Nicaragua—Our Leader announced to the people via Radio Belize that this monstrous storm with winds up to 160 miles per hour was “on a direct course to Belize.” And he then led us in the National Prayer plus assorted prayers for deliverance.

At the time I was explosively outraged, almost (but not quite) speechless. After the fact, I wonder if perhaps the old boy doesn’t have more pull than I realized. Fortunately, Our People did not panic. As the weather stayed quite decent, they went on with National-Day festivities and dived into shelters at the last (and unnecessary) minute. However, among other things, it occurred to me that at any given moment any one point on this earth (here) is on a direct line with any other given point (the location of Hurricane Edith).

It was a Tenth to remember. It was a day of radio. We had our Command Post upstairs, and Bucher wore a track from the radio, across the veranda to look at the sky and the wind direction per the courthouse flag, and back through the upstairs “living room.” From dawn we were onto ships in Puerto Cortés, Honduras, and were able to keep fairly close track of the storm’s effects and movements.

To my delight, I had an urgent cable from UPI in London saying that the circuits were out between New York and Belize so I was to file my reports in duplicate to New York and London. I only filed two, though I did get some fairly good information because of the radio.

The happiest man in the country was the Voice of Ambergris—Peter Martinez on the Buccaneer Lodge radio. Aside from not really knowing which direction was which, he was quite a help. As the day went on and the storm got closer, Bucher kept in constant touch with him and Pete Hancock at Ambergris and with William Bowman at Pelican Beach in Stann Creek [now Dangriga]. Since the storm was approaching dead on, it gave us a fair idea of what it was doing.

 

In brief, Edith slashed into Nicaragua, reportedly sank forty fishing boats, broke up over the mountains of Honduras, and went back into the Bay of Honduras very early on the Tenth. She sat still over the Bay Islands for several hours, dumping rain, but doing little real damage, with winds between 60 and 80 mph.

At two in the afternoon she passed Half Moon Caye with winds of about 35 mph. Dick Bradley talked to the young lighthouse-keeper, who couldn’t quite understand why about four o’clock he suddenly had no wind at all and then it began coming from the opposite direction. As he was told he’d had the Eye, his story got better. To everyone’s amazement, by six o’clock he was having SE winds of 60 mph. Since that didn’t fit any of the other data, I told Bucher I thought the boy had had a touch of Glory. In all probability that is partly right. However, from the wind speed and direction reports from all our regular stations, it was obvious that Edith had a very long and irregular Eye.

Caye Chapel must have had the Eye, since she had a flat calm with bright stars before the SE winds began. Anyway, the storm was a classical tropical storm as far as the circular motion went, but she wasn’t any sort of blow at all when she came through here. Two nights before a perfectly normal midnight squall had ripped one of the kitchen blinds off completely. With Edith, I didn’t even close all the windows.

 

And the telephone. Everyone who wasn’t on the radio was on the phone. In addition to the usual close friends or business people we had some interesting ones:

Raymond Weir—Should he move all his ground-floor people upstairs, because he really didn’t have room to.

Jeanne Dinger—I just listened to Radio Belize so thought I’d better call you to see what is really happening. (Radio Belize meticulously passed on Miami reports, but they all were over-estimated, judging by the information we were getting from people in the hurricane area.)

Barry Bowen—How can I believe we’re having 60-mph winds as Radio Belize says when my weeds aren’t even waving?

The Honourable C.L.B. Rogers from the Hurricane Center—Can you reach Ambergris? (The government apparently had decided it was going to wash away instantly.)

The Honourable Fred Hunter, who stayed in touch with Bucher after he had returned a reassuring report re Ambergris

It really was fun. Naturally it was a bit more fun once I realized that 1) we were getting the Eye, and 2) it wasn’t going to do any damage. This time I got the white gas (hadn’t managed that in time for Hurricane Chloe) and wired a few more blinds. We have the gorgeous new underwater flashlight, and I remembered where it was early on the 11th.

Bless their hearts, all of Bucher’s sisters called. Bibba called the night of the 9th. Apparently she had been talking about it and her husband Charles told her that if she were worried about Bucher’s not being there after the hurricane, she might as well talk to him before it. Becky and her husband Morris called at noon on the 12th and Deezy called later in the afternoon. Deezy wanted to know if we had called Carli to let her know that we were safe and Bucher explained that both children are pretty well informed on hurricanes and can interpret the news on them well enough not to worry.

I’m about to make a Handy Hurricane Guide for Nervous Relatives, since it honestly is hard for someone with no experience with the things to interpret news reports.