News of Friends

Gradually we learned how friends survived the hurricane.

Our neighbors Lia and Tom Tattersfield and their children sat out the storm with Liz and Mike Maestre on the opposite side of the harbor. Part of the Maestre’s kitchen roof blew off and some windows went, but aside from the screaming wind, the intrusive rain, and the shuddering of the house, they all were secure.

Around dawn, as the water began to rise, they heard banging on the front door and loud cries of “Rescue, rescue.” They thought it was someone come to save them, which they did not think they needed, but discovered that it was soldiers from the Volunteer Guard post across the street who had formed a line holding hands and made their way from the rapidly submerging Militia Headquarters to the nearest house.

Liz talked to the Officer-In-Charge and asked if she could make them some coffee and sandwiches. Upon his enthusiastic affirmative, she turned to her kitchen and found that the stalwart defenders of the nation already had eaten every bit of bread in the place, had broken into her liquor cupboard, finished a bottle of brandy, and were stuffing their pockets with her canned goods.

Tiny Liz and Nobby Lewis, who had spent the hurricane night with the Maestres, straightened out the situation quickly, promising to toss the entire detail out the window and into the water if there were any more foolishness.

A little later the poor soldiers, who had begged for shelter so desperately, swam through the raging water to break into the Queen’s Bonded Warehouse across the street. They broached cases of wine and made successive happy trips back and forth to the Maestre’s house, carrying their loot.

 

Denys Bradley, a talented young British Honduran boat builder, took his wife, six children, aunt, and uncle upriver on one of the large sport fishing boats owned by Vic Barothy. Vic was an internationally known fishing-camp operator who moved to Belize after Castro confiscated his establishment on the Isle of Pines.

The Bradleys weathered the first part of the storm safely, but as the water rose and whole trees were tossed about in the water, something pierced a hole in the boat and she began to sink rapidly. Denys grabbed one of his children, leaped overboard, and struggled ashore in neck-deep water. As he went, he felt a plastic clothesline that had been strung on the deck, and clutched it tightly. He secured the line on shore, swam back to the boat with the other end, and secured it.

He made repeated trips between boat and bank, each in more than five feet of water, carrying his children, his wife, and his aunt ashore. A sailor on board with them helped his uncle reach the river bank. Denys and his family managed to get into Barothy’s lodge and waited out the storm there.

Meanwhile the boat that Vic Barothy had taken upriver with his wife Betty and their young son Vic Jr. also sank. The family managed to claw their way to the mangrove lining the river bank and spent the rest of the night and the morning of the storm perched, wet but safe, in the tree limbs.

When the winds moderated, Vic trudged through many miles of swamp and then swam the river to get help to bring out his wife and child, an arduous trek for a man close to sixty years old.

 

Bucher’s freezer plant was used as a hurricane shelter by dozens of people. They were jammed up on top of the storage rooms, well protected, and above the highest water. However, early in the storm a freon line broke. The night watchman, a happy, blubbery young scamp who had been in and out of trouble all his life, saved the day. He located a gas mask and went outside into the hurricane winds. In the dark he fumbled his way to the cut-off valve because he was afraid that the children sheltering in the plant might be asphyxiated. By gracious miracle, his gallantry was not repaid by his being decapitated by the lumber and galvanized roofing sheets flying through the shrieking storm.

The morning after the hurricane, Bucher found at the freezer plant a 1" x 4" board that had been driven through the zinc of the roof, through the boards below it, and halfway through the interior wall.