Hurricane Emily
Trip Start
Jun 14, 2005
1
13
21
Trip End
Aug 20, 2005
Lance Aux Epines,
Grenada
Friday, July 15, 2005
Well, its been both and eventful few days, and at the same time very boring...namely hurricane emily
But before that there was the usual drinking and stupidity that goes with international medical student travel. But two of the liverpool girls (amy and haley) got mugged one night. Was quite scary actually coz we had only seen them a few minutes before it happened. Then we got a phone call from the pair sounding pretty shaken. The walk up from the restaurant we were at is only about 200 metres, and two men had been following them the whole way. As they got to the entrance of Wavecrest apartments where they are staying, they got jumped and amy was forced to the ground, and then down the road! Haley managed to shake her attacker off, and then helped amy
about 6 hours before emily arrived
. Nothing was stolen, and apart from being scraped, bruised and a bit shaken up, they are both fine now and their usual selves. So that put a bit of a dampener on events, and everyone is being a lot more cautious now.Then it was the wrath of the bitch, Emily. We had seen reports on the news about 2 days before showing a tropical storm looming off the east coast many miles away and it was projected to hit the windward island (of which grenada is the most southern). So we followed it carefully. It was confusing getting different reports from different sources. The news kept saying it was a tropical storm, likely to turn into a hurricane, but some people at home had said theyd seen satellite feeds showing it to already be a cat 3 hurricane! We didnt know what to believe. But then after the first night it had developed into a hurricane, and was likely to get stronger. It was estimated to hit at around midnight that night. The supermarkets were crazy - lots of white americans hoarding the water and bread, there was nothing left by about lunchtime the previous day!! We quickly made a dash to the hospital to say we were prepared and had somewhere to stay and then buggered off straight away to get ready. Its always important in a hurricane to get supplies of food and WATER, and batteries/candles, to last for 3 days. So we march into foodland to stock up. What do we buy? 24 bottles of beer, 4 litres of coke, 3 loafs of bread (for 7 people!!!) shit loads of cheese, pringles and some peanut butter
boats beached at my place
! rely on the brits to think they can get through a hurricane pissed. We got some petrol as well, just coz it seemed to be the thing everyone was doing, even tho i didnt know where i would want to drive afterwards!So, this takes us to about 2pm, 10 hours to go...oooooh.
hmm, well we got bored of sitting in the flat after about an hour and everyone just started doing their own thing, like going for a walk etc. It was eary outside tho, very quiet apart from the banging of people boarding up their windows. Quite a strange experience as well, coz its the sort of thing u see on the news, people preparing for a hurricane, but to be there doing it urself was a bit odd. So by about 6pm we were utterly bored out our minds. We were all staying a the liverpool lots flat at wavecrest by the way. By now we had already drunk half the beer and the girls were upstairs getting stoned!! Aisha, in all her wisdom, managed to persuade me to have a splif (even tho ive never smoked!!). I dont think i got high, more burnt my lungs and started coughing everywhere! But she gladly finished it off, much to her amusement, as everything in the world became funny! Off upstairs for more she went. The breeze started picking up by about now, but nothing major but it made us take the hint and hunker down for a hurricane. We had a gas canister so we could still cook, so i made everyone a curry, which then turned into a space curry (with hash for the innocents who dont understand). Still no hurricane. More beer, stupid games, laughing at the girls who couldnt formulate a single sentence coz they were so stoned. Then they all buggered off to bed at about 11pm. I stuck it out! grrr! I sat outside gradually seeing the wind pick up, but still it was only as bad as a small gale at home
boredom as we wait and wait and wait...
. But then at about 3am it started getting very gusty, and u could feel the gusts coming through the vibrations in the floor, quite disturbing actually! then just the roar of a gust of wind. It felt very strong but again it was only as bad as a gale at home. I was very tired, so retired, thinking it wasnt going to get any worse.Woke up the next day to find water everywhere! and apparently it hit about half an hour after i went to bed, with constant winds of about 90mph and gusts of about 115mph. There wasnt any damage to be seen but apparently the north of the island got hit very badly. the hospital lots some of its roof. my place in lance aux epine was a bit flooded, a few windows out, but nothing bad. The beach however was a sight! huge waves still crashing even though the storm had passed, and yatchs beached. trees everywhere and generally lots of shit on the beach. Grand anse apparently has loads of dead fish on it.
So, not quite as bad as we were expecting, but we got pissed and stoned and weathered it out :)
Thinking about changing the last 4 weeks of my elective to go around america, but will talk about that another time.
Cyas for now,
Andrew
