Tracey-Ann A. Warner, Contributor

Rushing waters from the Hope River in lower Tavern, St Andrew, take this house and a church downriver as rains from Hurricane Ivan pummelled the island on September 11, 2004. - Junior Dowie/Staff Photographer

As the winds howled outside, I sat huddled in a dark corner of the room with a piece of bread held tightly in my right hand. My nephew had gone under my parents' huge spring bed and my niece sat on a crooked chair at the far end of the room, crying softly. As the wind grew stronger, adult figures scuttled to and fro trying to batten down all the loose ends.

My eldest brother was nowhere in sight. He was summoned earlier in the morning by my aunt who needed help in battening down for the looming storm. I could hear my father shouting instructions to my neighbour, who had abandoned his one room shack next door to take refuge at our house. My mother appeared at the door and asked:

"Unnu all right?" I nodded. Satisfied, she walked back to the living room.

I heard the back door slam and my father came in with a grim look on his face, he remarked "We do the best we can, we just need fi pray now."

Hours seemed to go by while the wind continued to pick up speed. We had lost electricity from the previous night, but we had a transistor radio that gave us frequent updates on the hurricane's movement.

Outside, it was growing dark and the winds seemed to be dying. One of my brothers got up and walked towards the door, my father immediately cautioned him against opening the door. He remembered the '51 storm. "The eye of the hurricane" was passing over. Just as my brother sat down, the entire roof was ripped from the house. Everyone was panic-stricken. My sister screamed, "Wi dead now, wi dead now ... what we should do Papa?" My mother rounded up my niece and I and told us to join my nephew under her bed.

No sooner had we gone under the bed, we heard a thunderous crash and the bed started bearing down on us. My sister quickly pulled my niece out as the bed came crashing down on my nephew and me. I was so scared I couldn't make a sound. I tried to move but found I could not. My hair was tangled in the springs of the bed and my lower body was trapped between the floor and the collapsed bed. I let out a terrified wail. I could move no part of my body, save my hands - the space between the floor and the bed was not so great as to allow me to turn my head. I became frantic and tried to twist and squirm my way to freedom, but to no avail.

I cried, "Papa ... Mama, tek mi out, tek mi out ... please." I could hear frantic movements about the room, and then the room was underwater. My cries became more urgent and hysterical. I felt my throat constricting, my chest muscles tightened as I thought about the possibilities of dying.

I never once thought of my nephew who had been lying next to me. Since I couldn't turn my head, I probably thought he was crying out just as I was, but in reality he never made a sound. I got tired after a while and became quiet. I felt something soggy in my hand, remembered that I still had the piece of bread and proceeded to crush it. Hopelessness filled my mind and I started to cry again.

After being under the bed for what seemed like hours, I saw my sister peering at me. I had never been so happy to see any one. "Can you move?" she asked "Mi caan turn mi head," I told her. "Mi caan move mi hip either." She relayed this information to someone above her.

She asked "You can feel Bert beside you?" (I was in her line of vision, Bert who was beside me, was not). I stretched my left hand and felt him, I said, "Yes, but him not moving." This she also relayed. She told me to try and shake him (thinking that he might have fallen asleep because he had been under the bed for sometime). I shook him, but again there were no movements. The tears returned. I could only think that Bert was dead and that I would be next.

As my sister spoke to me, I felt the weight of the bed receding. As it was lifted, my sister told me "Try and turn your head to look at Bert." I did. He looked as pale as a sheet. I told her he looked like he was dead. I pleaded with her "Vashni, tell dem tek mi out, please."

I felt the bed lifting farther, and as pain ricocheted in my head, I cried out "Stop, stop ... mi hair, mi hair." Vashni looked to see what I was shouting about and told them that my hair was tangled in the springs of the bed. She tried to help to untangle the unruly bungle. I shouted at her "Pass a scissors, pass a scissors," when I realised that my hair was the only hindrance, because I could now move my lower body. Together, she and I managed to loosen the hair and my mother pulled me from beneath the bed as my father, two brothers and neighbour held the weight.

Vashni, still positioned in the same place, tried to reach my nephew. She pulled at his arm, but realised he was indeed dead. This she told my father, who told the others to lower the bed. As he turned away in defeat, he saw me in my mother's arms and engulfed me in a giant hug. As he cried, he held me. I was seven years old, his last of 12 children, who was conceived when he was 50 years old. And I almost died.

We were crowded in the living room. The roof had gone, but the ceiling held, thus we were afforded some shelter. My eldest brother, who had left over five hours earlier, came in with an incredulous look on his face. He scanned the room and realised that his son was missing. He first addressed my mother, "Mama, where is Bert?" My mother lowered her head and began to cry.

He became hysterical "Where is Bert, Papa?" My father tried to restrain him, as he told him what happened. His eyes became glassy as he searched the faces in the room. My older sister sat under a table with her two children along with my two brothers and Vashni. I was still in my mother's arms. He proceeded to grab my neighbour's arm, "Brother Lanza," he pleaded, "please come help mi lift the bed, mek mi tek out mi son." My father held on to Brother Lanza and grabbed my brother. "He's already dead, Miguel, he's already dead, and all of us together can't lift the bed, it is just too heavy." My brother stormed from the room, the strain of his grief left a deafening silence on all of us.

As the strength of the wind lessened, the rain began to pound the ceiling. My father told us to take what we could and try to dash to an abandoned two-storey building that was five minutes away. That was where we spent the night, taking turns to sleep and thinking about the damaging effects that Hurricane Gilbert left in its wake. My nephew was just six years old. He had his life ahead of him but he was taken by the storm, whose name he shared, which walked across the island on September 12, 1988, just 12 days prior to his seventh birthday.