‘Hurricane Satan’

St Elizabeth’s Treasure Beach, the fast-rising tourism community on Jamaica’s south coast, was left devastated after a pummelling from Category 4 Hurricane Beryl which tore off roofs, toppled trees, and downed dozens of power lines.

Officials have indicated that communication from the community to the wider Jamaica has been severed, and it could be weeks before mobile, Internet, or power connectivity is restored.

Well-known restaurants, villas, small hotels, and businesses were almost unrecognisable after the outer bands of the powerful storm swept through, dumping tons of debris as it departed the southern coastal waters of the island early Thursday.

Damaged solar panels, twisted sheets of zinc, and disfigured signs scattered throughout the area reflected the broader devastation seen along the south coast.

“This wasn’t no Beryl. A Satan this! Hurricane Satan. A Satan come,” a man, who was seated among a group playing dominoes near sundown on Friday, told The Gleaner.

He recalled that as the storm roared through the community, 13 of his immediate neighbours fled to his house, having lost either sections or all of their roofs.

“A outside me sleep. A 13 people a live with me right now,” said the man, who did not want his name published.

A record-breaking storm, the United States National Hurricane Center said Beryl morphed into a Category 5 hurricane as winds peaked at 165mph (270 km/h) last Tuesday before weakening to a still-destructive Category 4 while moving south of Jamaica.

Tried to remain calm

At what seemed like the peak of Beryl’s passage, Neville Rochester and his wife hunkered down in a corner inside their four-bedroom house.

It was the only one still partially covered, helping to buffer the conditions as Beryl bore down.

His wife was rattled, he said, but he tried to remain calm, not wanting to add to her distress his own fears.

Above all, their main concern was their heavily pregnant daughter, whose due date was fast approaching, as they pondered whether she would make it safely to hospital amid the state of the community.

At 64 years old, Rochester said it was the worst storm he had experienced as it out-muscled the 1988 Hurricane Gilbert that brought Jamaica to its knees.

“This is the worst one. This terrible,” Rochester, a native of Treasure Beach, asserted.

Metres away, his former schoolmate, Jack Ledgister, leaned against downed power lines that blocked the entrance to his yard.

He was resting from chopping through uprooted trees that formed a blockade across the space.

He, too, at 64 years old, had never seen a storm like Beryl.

“It mash up the whole place, you know,” he told The Gleaner on Friday.

“We never imagine anything like this. It’s the first we experience one in the day. A mostly night hurricane come. It shocking to experience a thing like this. About 80 per cent of down here mash up. You can see the damage for yourself. The hotel and all dem place deh mash up,” he said.

He believes it will take a long time for the community to recover.

Green optimistic

However, Floyd Green – the agriculture and fisheries minister, who is also member of parliament for St Elizabeth South Western, which houses Treasure Beach – is more optimistic.

As Green puts it, Treasure Beach is the community tourism Mecca of the Caribbean, and at the centre of it are the people.

“We have really established a strong brand over the years. It’s a different type of tourism that causes people to come and spend weeks, sometimes months, and as such, it’s the tourism that kind of brings the greatest returns into the island,” Green said.

He said Treasure Beach’s tourism product brings significant employment to the community with a rise in villas that add to the already established Jakes Hotel and Lashings Beach Club.

No fewer than 10 to 15 villas have set up operations in the area over the last decade, Green said, making Treasure Beach key to the economic well-being of the parish and national tourism product.

But how soon the community bounces back is dependent on the speed at which local authorities and utility companies can mobilise teams for restoration work.

Added to that, fishing, an established income earner for the community – and in particular Calabash Bay – equally took a blow.

Beryl’s passage also means a setback for fisherfolk in the community.

“A number of them clearly were not able to go out, and we do expect that when they go out, the pots that they have left will no longer be there because of the strength that Hurricane Beryl came with,” Green said.

“So this, really, will deal a significant blow to the people of Treasure Beach in general. The good news is that our tourism product is built on people, not on attractions. So, we’re very optimistic that as soon as we can start to get things back to normal, we can do some of the repairs, we can clear some of the roads that people can get there, people will come,” Green said, adding that approximately 90 per cent of roads have been cleared.

He said water-restoration efforts are now under way though challenging, with no power supply.

“I think the quicker we can get some of those things restored, Treasure Beach will bounce back,” he said.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com