‘I am amazed by people’s resilience’

Sep 12 2008 by Rebecca Edwards, Chester Chronicle

A CHESTER ex-pat survived two hurricanes that battered her West Indian island home within a week.

Hurricanes Hanna and Ike have left hundreds of people homeless in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Bahamas, where former Upton High School pupil Rebecca Bird is a newspaper reporter.

Former Abbots Park resident Rebecca, 27, lives on the island of Providenciales and was caught unprepared for category one Hurricane Hanna on Monday last week.

Shops closed early to prepare for the storm and she ran out of water and phone credit before the storm hit with winds of up to 95mph.

On Saturday, she had to board up her windows and pack sandbags around walls before category two Hurricane Ike hit the island with 115mph winds.

This week she said: “Hurricane Hanna was a category one storm and had already caused a lot of damage to the islands – power cables were down, there was lots of flooding in the low lying areas, dozens of trees were knocked over by the winds and many roofs had lost their tiles.

“I spent Saturday night with friends in the apartment above. We spent the evening watching the skies get gradually darker and cloudier, and the winds slowly pick up. But it wasn’t until about 2am that the hurricane hit with full force.

“We couldn’t see what was happening because of the plywood on all the windows, until one by one the wind picked them up and forced them to fly off.

“Then we watched the trees in our back garden get battered by the wind and rain for the rest of the night.

“It wasn’t until a few hours after it began to get light that we risked venturing outside. But we didn’t get far – just a trip from one apartment to the next – as the winds remained extremely strong.

“It was later in the day that we could actually take a trip outside and see what the hurricane had done to the island.”

Nobody was killed in the storm, although hundreds of wooden buildings were destroyed, leaving many of the island’s 25,000 residents homeless and without drinking water.

Rebecca is now covering the aftermath of the hurricane for the Turks and Caicos Weekly News and says the community has united in relief efforts.

She said: “The local supermarket has donated food and water, pilots are flying aid out for free and the boss of the local air centre has provided free fuel for the planes.

“The island is very Christian, and many people are thanking God for the notable lack of casualties, calling it a ‘miracle’.

“Personally I am amazed by the resilience of the local people, their positive attitude and their thankfulness in the face of such a huge natural disaster.

“Many hundreds have lost their homes and yet they just get up and start again. Residents are already clearing rubbish, mending roofs and drying out all their clothes, mattresses and property.

“For me, this was one experience that I have never before been through and will probably never go through again.

“But the bonds that forged over these past few weeks between everyone who experienced these immense storms is something I will remember for a long time.”

You can donate to the relief effort at www.redcross.org.uk. Read Rebecca Bird’s reports on the hurricane at www. tcweeklynews. com.