Hurricanes Past: The Collier’s First Hurricane

Being on the shore, it wasn’t long before the water rose, came in under the door, and began flooding the hut. The wind drove more rain through the seams in the walls. Floodwater began to rise. We put all the chairs on the big dining table and climbed up on them and soon the girls and the younger boys climbed into the sleeping lofts. We passed all the books up to the children in the loft. William instructed them to empty one of our trunks and place the book and maps inside.

We stayed huddled in our hut, praying it would hold together. I feared the hut would blow apart and everything and everybody would be washed out to sea. Then the storm seemed to grow quiet. I looked to William to give the all clear signal. But instead, he shook his head and reached out for my hand.

“Everyone just stay put and wait for another round of wind and rain just as strong as the first.”

William and I wrapped our arms around each other. He told the boys to climb into the lofts and hold on to their sisters and Jack and Walter as the storm began to rage again. William handed Mama Dog up to the girls.

Laura worried, “Pup is out there in the storm. I bet he is scared without his Mama.”

Papa assured her, “Pup will hunker down under a tree and come home with his tail between his legs when the storm passes.”

It seemed that Laura believed her Papa. I did not. I feared our little dog would be drowned and lost for good.

Walter cried for me so the boys handed him down from the loft. I wrapped him in the only dry towel I had, put my arms around him, and sang softly in his ear. He grew quiet as I sang. William whispered to me that he hoped the storm would just move off and not stall for days. He held me tightly as we braced ourselves for the next round. I don’t suppose I knew then that a hurricane could stall for days, but there was so much I didn’t know about living on a tropical island.

When the storm finally subsided, the house was still standing but was flooded with about three feet of water. Daylight broke and we could see that we were all alive and chuckled at the sight of little Walter who had fallen asleep in my arms as he calmly sucked his thumb. Our spirits were high and we were almost jubilant at the thought of having made it through our very first hurricane.

William cautioned that the house, although still standing, had been blown slightly off its foundation and some of the supports had broken. He told everyone to stay where they were, not to move about, and to try and get some sleep until the flood water receded. Standing on the table, William threw a child’s chair into the swirling water inside our house. It drifted seaward, showing that the water was not just standing there, it was receding. Some hours later, when the water was only ankle-deep, we were finally able to slowly retrieve the children from the loft. We waded around our flooded chickee and outside in our campsite, assessing the damage to the chickee and hoping to find some usable household items. As we emerged from the hut, we were stunned to see that our beautiful two-story home was beyond saving. And so was my cooking hut. Nearly everything had been blown or washed away with the exception being my ole cast-iron cook stove and all the pots and pans we stored inside her.

Outside, every leaf on every bush was blown away, smaller trees were downed while many of the palm trees were still standing but had lost all their fronds. Our garden was completely washed away. The storm had whipped up so much saltwater and sand that as it dried it appeared that everything was lightly covered in snow. We tried to salvage our plants but very few could be saved; they were either drowned from the rain or dried from the saltwater. Losing the garden was a terrible blow to us. Our cash crop of cabbage to sell in Fort Myers was gone, completely washed away. The garden had been producing so well and we had come to rely on being able to pick what we wanted or needed each day that we had let our reserves run lower than we should. Our stores were flooded, but thankfully, most of the food was safely stowed on the ‘Robert E. Lee.’

The path to the river was blocked with fallen trees and palm fronds. The boys cleared it so they, along with Thomas, could hike over to the river to find out if and how the ‘Robert E. Lee’ made it through the storm. Jimmy sent Thomas back to report to Papa that ‘The General’ was just fine and the hatches kept the contents safe and dry. The river side of the island hadn’t sustained the tree damage that the shore side had. It seemed that the mangroves protected it and took the brunt of the wind. Our house was totally destroyed but my family was safe and ‘The General’ in good order. Alas, we couldn’t find Pup.

It wasn’t until ‘The General’ came sailing around to the seaward side of the island that we could finally see for ourselves that she had survived. And the boys had picked up a passenger on the trip home. They found Pup on the east side of the island, hiding in the mangroves. He was soaking wet and frightened but no worse for his ordeal.

We hurriedly built another chickee hut because the storm season wasn’t quite over. It was not as elaborate and didn’t have the luxury of sleeping lofts, but this time it was above the shore, across the creek, and behind the mangroves. We didn’t have the expansive view but it was a safer location and we sheltered there during the remainder of the rainy season. We moved our garden to higher ground but had to restart all our plantings. We never found our scarecrow, Old Man Marco.