I remember one night when the phone rang at 3am, Aki Wiggins on the line, Rona she asked, did you hear anything about a coming storm. I lifted my head off the pillow and looked out the window. The palm trees were swaying like pendulums. In a rush, I threw on a wrap, and stepped out of the house into the yard and onto the street to be greeted by local Police there to help evacuate all neighborhood residents for fear of the ocean, which was about to check into our homes. The boulevard was coral and shell strewn, littered with large rocks, spat by the rolling waves onto the asphalted street. The sea was raging. A heavy blanket of dark clouds and drizzle hug overhead.
That was the tail of Hurricane Lenny, in 1999, producing high winds and rough surf, or maybe it was Ivan in September of 2004, who was far away north, but still managed to piss on our heads. We listened to the radio during Emily in 2005, biting our nails, but she just dumped water in the far distance and went to Mexico. Felix was the closest, 78km north of the island, in September of 2007, but he was more interested in Jamaican than in Aruba. Thank you Felix. I remember washing my dogs in honor of Lenny, Ivan, Emily and Felix, just in case they had to huddle/cuddle in bed with me; I wanted them to be freshly shampooed! We bought some bottled waters and batteries for a radio, and that was the extent of my preparation.
I met Aki in the supermarket, on Thursday, she was stocking on apples, pre-Matthew. We reminisced. In those days, we had no weatherman and your guess was as good as my guess, weather just materialized, it was never predicted, let alone accurately.
We have DMA now, an organized Meteorological Department, with Marc Oduber, the official weatherman. We love to hate him, because a man whose job is to predict the fickle weather cannot always be right.
When Mathew started forming, early last week and it became apparent it was heading in our direction, the MinPres and the MinTour nationalized the weather business, taking reporting over from as early as Wednesday. We called Meteo that day, and were told that the 12noon bulletin still needs to be approved by the MinPres and the MinTour, before being release. One of my readers commented that in the U.S. they called that a “Chamber of Commerce” weather forecast, when things are monitored and screened a la 1984, a novel by George Orwell, in which the government rearranges the information.
The MinPres hosted a few press conferences to dramatically discuss the weather and finally asked commerce’s cooperation to give everyone a day off. Then the storm became a national holiday, and really took on a festive, fun air. The drama queens wanted us all to batten down the thatches, nail everything to the floor and prepare for the worst. One of my friends a school principle described drama at school where parents were taking their kids home, calling him irresponsible, while the sky was still clear, and no sign of bad weather, yet.
Naturally, with the threat in the air business slowed down from Wednesday midday. Then Thursday, hardware stores hit the jackpot, and on Friday, businesses who insisted on opening were blasted as inhumane exploiters.
With everyone off, cruising around, and taking selfies by the ocean, the MinPres’ popularity soared. Let my people go, he said, and government offices, banks and Setar remained off, through a long weekend, though we had no cable, no internet, for quite a few hours Friday, no biggie.
While all this was going on, our meteo man, Marc Oduber, continued to stick to the facts. Some rain he said, some winds, the tempest is a few degrees north of us, so “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
As time told, he was right, and felt vindicated by Matthew’s spin north of us. The hurricane dumped some rain, then decided to tackled old favorites, as he’s on route to Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica.
The beach at the Divi is hit the hardest, for the 20th time, and they will rebuild, they are veterans of many storms, and with the government help, it will happen sooner than you think.