HURRICANES ARE NOTHING TO BE TRIFLED WITH!

Cleaning up after a Tropical Storm, Nassau, Bahamas

Hurricane Matthew has turned north towards The Bahamas! This is a dangerous hurricane and all of us here should be making the necessary preparations.

I experienced my first hurricane in The Bahamas at the beginning of September, 1965. I’d just arrived in Nassau and was sharing an apartment with two English girls and an Australian girl above the Verdant Gardens Coffee Shop on Dowdeswell Street.

It was right before I met Erskine. Later I discovered he had been just down the road on Armstrong Street, helping to put up his sisters’ storm shutters!

The girls and I were excited about the prospect of going through a hurricane. Naturally, I scribbled away in my notebook, recording the experience.

Two guys that we knew (not boyfriends) offered to camp out in our apartment and be of assistance if needed. The storm became pretty rough. I stood on the edge of the bathtub to look out of the window and saw the roof of a tall building on top of Collins Avenue flapping in the wind!

Betsy actually stalled over Nassau before it went on to inflict winds of up to 147 m.p.h. on Great Abaco Island. 

We came out of the hurricane unscathed with no damage – no thanks to the two guys who had brought a bottle of rum with them, consumed the whole bottle and passed out on our living room floor!