Whenever we meet people in our travels and tell them where we live, they always assume that our house is located in a danger zone, that the Caribbean is unsafe during the hurricane season. While this may be true for many of the Islands situated along the chain, Bequia is at latitude 13, closer to the equator. As a result, we get tropical waves and sometimes tropical storms which grow stronger as they progress along the chain, but rarely do we take a direct hit from a hurricane. I have witnessed wild seas and strong winds over the years, forceful enough to cause considerable damage, but the last time Bequia took serious “licks” from a hurricane was back in 1955. Hurricane Janet was a freak category 5 hurricane that slammed into Barbados, killing several people before wreaking similar havoc on many of the Windward Islands.
Hugo, a major hurricane responsible for death and destruction from Guadaloupe onwards, is a prime example of a typical system that develops off the coast of Africa during the storm season. Hugo was a powerful Cape Verde hurricane that began to form on September 9, 1989, and by Sept. 17th it made landfall on the coast of South Carolina as an extremely powerful and deadly hurricane. Sustained winds were clocked at 120 mph, and the damage to some of the coastal towns in the United States was devastating. Bequia experienced the beginning of this powerful storm, but it did not gain hurricane strength until it was further north. Guadaloupe suffered loss of life and destruction, as did the Islands of Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, the BVI’s and Puerto Rico, but little Bequia was spared.
However, what Bequia DOES experience when major tropical systems are wreaking havoc elsewhere are storm surges. The sea swells created by the storms produce powerful waves that batter the beaches along the waterfront, and we felt the wrath of Hurricane Hugo long after he had passed our part of the Caribbean. The previous year (September 1988) the storm surge from Hurricane Gilbert had pounded Bequia, but the waves thrown up by Hurricane Hugo were a whole different kettle of fish! I literally felt the ground shake each time a wave pounded the shore, the swells were enormous as they rolled and then crested through Admiralty Bay. Mac and I watched in awe as the large ships and yachts rose and fell helplessly in the harbour, it made me feel queasy as they were tossed about like corks by the waves.
That night, when the surge was at its strongest, we were awakened by a phone call from Andy Williams, Lyston and Rita’s son. He and his family lived where Dive Adventures is now situated, and due to their location right by the sea he was unable to sleep. Andy had called to tell us that our sea wall was falling, and that we had better get down to the Pizzeria. Dressing hastily, Mac and I rushed to the waterfront and watched in horror as the big concrete wall was sucked out to sea by the powerful waves. There wasn’t anything we could do about it, only a fool would attempt to get between the dangerous swells and what was left of the wall, all we could do was watch as the surge finished what it had started.
Our sea wall was history and we would have to build a new one, it wasn’t the end of the world, a wall can be replaced. What COULDN’T be replaced was the land the surge began to eat once the protective wall had been demolished. The waves were relentless, and a bit of land disappeared each time an angry swell hit the shore. When the storm surge finally stopped, we discovered that ten feet of land had been taken by the sea, a whopping ten feet! Hugo may not have hit Bequia as a hurricane, but the swells that affected us later certainly inflicted damage when our wall no longer protected the property. The pathway that Mac and I had so painstakingly patched with rocks and concrete over the years was gone too, and I think that upset me more than the missing ten feet of land. That and the fact that the sea wall was not covered by our insurance policy, a situation I remedied by taking out sea-wall coverage in subsequent years!
The beach that had existed in front of the Pizzeria when we opened in 1979 and where my children had played so happily in the early 80’s no longer existed. Between the illegal removal of sand for construction, storm surges and a rising sea level, water now covered the area where beach towels could once be spread. I worried about it, I worried a lot, and threw renewed efforts into getting government funding for a proper walkway along the waterfront. I submitted that year’s Tourist Committee Budget proposal with an estimate for a walkway and crossed my fingers.
It was time.