Author | Lightnews

So Jamaica is on its own. It’s going to be an awful night. I know what they are go through, but I don’t know how they will survive this. It will put them back for a generation. West Indians are tough, resilient, brilliant people. But it breaks my heart that tonight, they are on their own. 15/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

But Jamaica has no such support. It’s not a wealthy place, and no one is staging a post-Melissa rescue. In a previous age, America would have led the charge to help out our devastated southern neighbor, but no one expects the white supremacist movement in charge in Washington do to so. 14/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

were flooding in. The Mitterrand government had staged a massive relief effort at French Guiana, and relief arrived in short order, so unlike the drowning of New Orleans. Say what you will about French bureaucracy—what a saw that month was government in right action. 13/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

But Guadeloupe had one great advantage. It’s part of France, the same way Hawaii is part of the US. The afternoon after the hurricane, I looked up into the sky to see a row of French Air Force cargo planes lined up for the airport. The next day, there was a soldier on the corner and supplies… 12/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

The island was devastated. In some communities, 80% of the housing was destroyed. Dozens were dead, roads were deeply flooded, bridges destroyed, people wandering about in a daze. One talks of a “bomb going off”. Hugo was a ten hour explosion that whipped away people’s lives. 11/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

Guadeloupe is the greenest place I know, a tropical island of forest, field, volcanos covered in vegetation and mangrove swamps. The island looked like it had experienced its first ever winter. Not a leaf remained on a tree, and many trees were simply gone. I’ve never seen such transformation. 10/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

The barricade went up on that side of the apartment, as the roar returned, the express train ran again. We hunkered down. I think I might have even slept an hour or two. Across from our building, a weather station recorded gusts of 300kph, or 186mph. Finally, the dawn came. 9/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

Now, it was at our backs, from the opposite direction. We turned to walk the 100 feet back to the apartment door. By the time we arrived, we were bowed over, struggling to move forward, the raindrops blowing into the breezeway stinging like mosquitoes. We made it in and slammed the door shut. 8/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

Our car was where we had parked it. The one that had been parked next to it was 20 meters away on its roof. The one that had been parked on the other side was also on its roof in the other direction. They’d been thrown like toys, leaving ours only slightly dented. Then the wind started again. 7/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

We decided to go out our front door to the hallway, which was open at both ends with staircases. We wanted to see if our car was still in the parking lot. The staircase was about a hundred feet from the door. We walked down and looked over the edge, at the damage below. 6/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

I took down the barricade to our little balcony and looked stepped out. It was foggy, but the air was perfectly still, with birds flying frantically around. The palm trees nearby had been reduced to broken sticks. In the distance, you could hear to roar of the wind, but it was dead still. 5/15

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Spencer Windes (like “winds a yo-yo”) @spencerwindes.bsky.social · 8h

…it lasted for hours. The entire building, a cement structure not designed to sway, was visibly moving. The mattresses over our duct-taped windows bulged inward with the glass. The roar made you feel you were losing your mind. But then, suddenly, it stopped. 4/15

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