Hurricane Omar

Thank you for your calls and emails checking up on us!!! 

We survived our first hurricane! How was it? Well, glad you asked.  We didn’t know it at the time, but later heard Omar had intensified into a category 3 at some point before he finally hit us. When we last checked, Omar was a category 1.  Coming from The Windy City, I’ve felt some pretty strong wind gusts, but nothing like this.  Imagine the strongest gust of wind (if you’ve never been in a hurricane) and double it, then imagine it being sustained over a long period of time.  

 

We took this short video around 11pm: the winds were just beginning to pick up, but were nothing compared to what we would later hear.  Someone said the storm didn’t really hit us until 3am.

 

Michael left the decision of which room we would hunker down in to me.  My scientific training led me to calculate the ratio of glass-to-wall in sq. feet.  I concluded the guest room was the way to go since the ratio of glass-to-wall was less than 1 and was smaller than in any other room ((g, ft^2/w, ft^2) < 1 for all my fellow nerds..haha).  I didn’t factor in wind direction; however, so we ended up “sleeping” in the room that took the biggest blow.  I don’t mean to scare you! It’s just that the wind was whipping something fierce and the branches were slapping up against the windows in there with a fury.  Seeing as how we are usually in bed by 11pm here, I was fighting to stay awake and keep an eye on things.  Each time I almost drifted off to sleep, the wind would gust at full force again.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, either.  I kept wondering whether the wind would get stronger, trying to mentally calculate how much more the cottage could withstand. At one point I heard a loud snap and braced myself for the unknown.  Luckily, nothing happened.  I kept thinking the windows would implode, so I pulled the blanket up over my face. The fact that the power was out didn’t make it any better, because it was about 90 degrees in here.  We had all the windows closed up, no fans or air conditioning, and I had a blanket pulled up over my head most of the night.  Let’s just say I finally drifted off to sleep around 4am, when the winds finally died down. Mike, you ask?  He slept through the whole thing! 

 

Here’s what the bay looked like the next morning.

 

like nothing ever happened

We’re so very thankful our little cottage stood up to Omar the way she did. We had nothing more than a few branches and twigs land on our balcony and terrace. 

 

It didn’t take long to discover the source of the loud snap from that night!  Thankfully, it fell on the walkway and not on our place.  

 

When life gives you palm trees...

 

 

Trees and branches littered most of the walkways here at The Summit.

 

 

A palm tree fell on the roof of the old “Kissing Fish” restaurant beside our pool (the new owners are in the process of rehabbing the whole poolside area: a new restaurant and bar will open soon).

 

 

Here’s the taxi stand by our parking lot.

 

Luckily, there was no real damage to our car.

 

It’s now 10.19.08.  The power was off for the better part of 3 days.  It came on around 10pm last night (Saturday) and has been on ever since.  We were without water on Thursday and part of Friday. No one I know has cable television yet.

Mike and I have plenty of canned goods, but cooking without electricity poses a bit of a challenge.  Luckily, we have a grill and Mike knows how to use it!!

Don't try this at home, folks! (no seriously, it was gross!)

 

Once the sun set at around 6pm, we had to find ways to entertain ourselves.  Shadow puppets are OK, but there are only so many things you can make with two hands! I mean, what else is there besides the dog and the bat, really?

 I happen to be re-reading ‘The Glass Castle’ by Jeannette Walls right now. I decided Rex Walls and his clan wouldn’t let a little thing like no electricity get in their way of fun!  Mike and I played a game Rex invented: The Ergo Game.  You make two statements of fact and the other person has to answer the question based on those statements, or else say “Insufficient information to draw a conclusion” and explain why. Ahh..good times!

Seeing as how we are one of the only cottages in The Summit Resort NOT on the backup generator, Mike also made up a game called ‘How’s your electricity treatin’ ya?’  To play this game, you had to find someone staying in the resort and mutter ‘how’s your electricity treatin’ ya?’ under your breath.  Of course you wouldn’t actually want to say it to them and be rude, but it somehow felt good anyway. Then, there were variations, like ‘how’s your air conditioning treatin’ ya? bet it’s nice!’ and so on and so forth.

When that got old, we decided to venture out and survey the area. The golf course that runs along Mullet Beach (and, incidentally where we do our morning walks) was hit hard.  The green, healthy grass has now been replaced by dead, brown grass and sand. The whole area was under water!

 

picture from Kathy's blog..thanks!

Here’s the golf course a day later.

 

 

One of Mike’s friends was supposed to be flying out of town on Friday.  Although I told him he probably shouldn’t risk driving on ‘the road’ since it floods during a normal rain, he said he’d given his word.  Apparently, the road was so flooded that most people took to driving right on the golf course.  Mike followed suit and got stuck in the sand.  Luckily, some of his classmates were walking by and offered to give him a push.  Mike’s friend ended up walking the rest of the way to to airport ;(

 

The area known as Maho didn’t sustain very much damage.  

Maho Beach (where people watch the planes come in to Princess Juliana Airport) wasn’t so lucky.  The shoreline is completely gone!  

 

Here’s a picture of what Maho Beach used to look like (found online).

 

And, remember the gorgeous club, Bliss from Michael’s White Coat Ceremony Reception?  Here are some of the remains.

picture from Kathy's blog

 

Due to flooding, we weren’t able to get to many of the areas I would have liked to have photographed.  Here are a few pictures taken by Maho Beach, near an area that was hit very hard: Beacon Hill.

 

 Thanks again to everyone who expressed their concern.  I know my mom and sister along with friends from Chicago had a hard time getting hold of us.  Hopefully, we can make it through medical school without another hurricane!!!