Tagged: anguilla, caribbean, hurricane irma
If there’s a poetic way to explain what it’s like to survive a hurricane, let alone one of historical Category 5 strength, Vanessa Thompson has figured it out. In “The Things We Lost in the Storm” post on her blog, Vanessa Explains, Thompson, a school teacher in Anguilla, describes in vivid detail what her husband Daryl, their children and a family friend experienced as Hurricane Irma came and went as they sheltered in the family home.
Describing the scene outside with trees “bent to the ground in prayer” and rain that “fell, but never touched the earth,” Thompson lures the reader in to such a point of engrossment that you feel as if you’re there with her. She goes on to detail the experience inside as Irma bore down on them, writing that their concrete house was “snowing plaster and paint as the hurricane struggled to pull the rafters out of the concrete” and waterfalls initiating “on the the walls and the stairs and anywhere that gave an appropriate angle.”
She includes the conversations from that night where death, a subject no young child should ever have to bring up, is brought plainly to the forefront by her five year old son when he asks if they’re going to die. You find yourself so completely caught up in her story from that night that you end up rooting for the participants as if you were there with them.
Thompson goes on to describe the scene afterwards, realizing that they “lost everything that could not withstand water.” Her drive into town resulted in her putting up another futile fight against water, this time in the form of tears streaming down her face as the effects of Irma on the island’s capital became all too real.
To read the entire story of what it was like for Thompson, her family and friend during and after Hurricane Irma, you can find here article here.
To help Thompson and her family, you can visit their GoFundMe page. The article also includes ways to help Anguilla and information on where to ship items to help the school children on the island.
