Hartley Neita, Contributor

The first hurricane I remember was 'Charlie'. A cousin of mine and our landlady and her fiancé played dominoes by lantern light until the wee hours of the morning. Every now and then one of us got up and searched the house for leaks. We found none. Happily!

At about midnight there was a huge crash. The next morning, we found it was a guinep tree which grew at the fence between our neighbour and ourselves, and which fell without touching a wall.

Sharing experience

We joined friends living in our neighbourhood, walking on the roads and sharing experiences. Later, some of us rode our bicycles through St. Andrew and Kingston visiting friends. On some streets we could not ride. It seemed as if every tree in these parishes was blown down. So, too, were the electric light poles. Hundreds of houses had no roofs. We were fortunate.

Communities such as Barbican, Hope Pastures, Mon Havendale, Cherry Gardens, Graham Heights and Meadowbrook did not yet exist. The lands there were littered with trees. By noon we were reading The Daily Gleaner and seeing photographs of houses washed away or as in Port Royal, blown down flat.

I do not recall how long it took before electricity, water and telephone services were restored. But I do remember that after the next memorable hurricane, 'Gilbert', those of us who lived in the Corporate Area discovered the pleasure of moonlight nights for a long, long time.

By the time'Ivan' came, we were beginning to learn how to prepare for and manage disasters. We had telephone service during that hurricane, and water and electricity returned to most areas quite quickly.

Now it is hard to measure which hurricane is worse. It depends on what you had to lose and what you did lose. It's a personal thing. So there are some who say 'Gilbert' was the worst of all. Others say 'Ivan' did the most damage. In some areas, residents claim that 'Dean' unleashed a strength which was incomparable. What I do know, is that our public services are returning at a pace unimaginable 20 years ago.

The aftermath

As I did when 'Ivan' lashed us with its anger, I stayed with my son and his family last Sunday. On Monday morning, I rubbed my body with a wet rag. At noon, I asked my son to drive to my home, if it was possible - and it was - so by late afternoon I returned home. Fortunately, I have a water tank and I was able to enjoy the pleasure of a shower. Like love, you don't know pleasure until you lose it.

Electricity returned the following day. My telephone never stopped working.

What we need to do in the future is to try to purchase and put aside, at the beginning of the hurricane season, tinned food, batteries, masking tape for our windows, biscuits, flour, sugar, rice, matches, other non-perishable food, and kerosene oil. And from the moment the hurricane enters the Caribbean, we should fill our vehicles with petrol. We can therefore avoid the crush in the service stations, shops and supermarkets on the eve of a hurricane.

At the time of writing, I do not have the cable service. But so what? I am now reading books which have been piling high in my study.