Article By: Bernardine Wood
As Irma lands in the Caribbean and heads toward Florida and beyond, and as Jose makes its way alongside on a more Easterly track, I remember Juan.
Of course, no one who lived through Hurricane Juan will ever forget it.
In Nova Scotia we often catch the breath of Atlantic hurricanes. Typically they are cooled off enough and tame enough by the time they reach Maritime Canada that bringing patio furniture indoors and stocking up for 2-3 days of power loss is the most precaution we ever need to take. Flashlights, batteries, a charged cell phone. Grumping about whatever we might lose in our freezers.
The warnings always come, but in that “cried wolf” way we typically laugh them off and make jokes about being stocked with storm wine and storm chips.
September 28th, 2003 was a fine day. We knew Juan was coming, and as usual expected it to weaken or change course out to sea. I watched radar and satellite images online, tracking it. I was living in our home outside the city then, with a large lake not far from my front door, and the Atlantic Ocean just a few miles out of sight of my back yard.
Hour after hour that Sunday ticked by until it was clear that Juan was coming. Not just coming toward us but straight at us. I remember the dread of watching the monster’s horrible eye fix on us and not waver its gaze. We cleared everything on the deck into the garage, we closed every window. We drew water into pitchers from the well. My phone was charged and I had a flashlight and batteries. My gas tank was full.
Night came and I settled my nine-year-old son into a loveseat outside my upstairs bedroom door so he would be close to me. Eventually we went to sleep and just … prayed for the best. Because at some point that’s really all you have left.
It was the crash that woke me. The most horrifying crash and then the howling. The pitch black darkness … although I have just tried to describe it … was indescribable. I was sure a tree had smashed into and through the house. I had to feel in front of me with my hands to find my way to Ian, screaming his name. Finally my hands found his soft little body. He spoke to me, he was unharmed.
My eyes adjusted and I found the flashlight. The storm was raging all around me in the house. Wet leaves everywhere. The nearby bathroom window had been closed, not latched. Juan had ripped it off.
I found plywood and nails and tried to board up the window, Ian holding the flashlight to guide me. It took all my strength to push the wood into place, with Juan pushing back as hard as it could. I will never forget how warm the rain was. Like bathwater. And salty. Juan had picked up the ocean and thrown it at us.
I did a probably foolish thing that night but I was so worried about what damage the window may have caused someone else that I went out into the backyard to try to locate it. The eye was passing over us in that moment. And I stood in the eerie stillness of its quiet. A brief pause in the beast’s terrible rampage. Breathless.
The next morning was a post-apocalyptic movie scene. Trees downed everywhere. Roofs damaged. My neighbor’s chimney on the ground. The silence was punctured only by the sounds of chainsaws. Everywhere.
We, and many others, were without power for weeks. Juan claimed lives, set records and closed parks for years.
And it taught us to never take a storm warning lightly again. Thoughts and prayers to all those who hurricane season has already harmed, and to those who stand now in Irma’s path: Please stay safe.
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