Hurricane Honeymoon Part II
Our host, the owner "Joe", was a recent purchaser of the hotel, A native New Yorker, he didn't appear to be worried at first, but soon he started fretting. He moved all of our belongings into his personal living area in the concrete-reinforced first floor of the hotel. We anxiously awaited the storm with Joe, the manager Tim, Phil (Joe's friend) and Kelly--the sometimes bartender. Kelly had been through a few storms growing up in the Southern United States. As we sat at the little hotel bar, waiting for the storm, the drinks became stronger and stronger, and soon were free of charge--this reminded me of stories I had heard about New Orleans and the famous "hurricane" drink.
The first half of the storm was terrible. We watched limbs ripped from trees and the normally calm Atlantic swell up with waves that battered the outside eating area of the hotel. We watched as the waves rolled in, and the strong winds blew the top curl back the other direction. I tried to wait out the storm in the back bedroom with a pillow over my head, but the noise was so great that I found it was better to put myself in a protected corner in the breezeway of the hotel, and watch the storm, and its fury. At least this way I could see what was happening, rather than waiting for the walls to fall in around me.
Finally it seemed that it was over. The waves settled down as well as the wind. It became very calm and I was ecstatic that everyone seemed OK. This is when we decided to take the walk that I described in the beginning of my tale. I had always heard of the eye of the storm, but didn't really think that the small island of St. Croix would be in the direct path of the eye. Surprise surprise--the storm was just taking a break. It had battered everything from one direction and was gearing up to slam everything in the totally opposite direction.
The second half of the storm was tremendous. At one point we stood out in the breezeway and leaned forward, straight legged, into the wind as far as we could. The winds were so strong, that they held us upright. I found out later that the winds were in excess of 110 miles per hour. I thought about many of the wooden homes on the island which would be no match for winds of this strength.
Latest Articles