Hurricane Marilyn, Part 1 – Grilled Shrimp

September 1995 was the beginning of our second year living on St. Thomas and I was about to start my second year teaching. I worked at a private K though 12 school attended by local children. It was the heart of the Atlantic hurricane season and 1995 was an extremely active year.

First, my wife Marci and I, along with everyone else on the island, prepared for Hurricane Luis which passed us by around September 6^th. It did little damage on St. Thomas, although the destruction on other Caribbean islands was considerable. About a week later, on September 15^th, Hurricane Marilyn blew across St. Thomas.

This is part one of the letter I wrote to friends and family in the days after the hurricane. I will include part two in a future post. The letter is presented here as it was written, unedited, except for correcting misspellings. As I read through it now, I would certainly change things. I would edit it to make the language cleaner and the punctuation neater, and I would likely clarify some points. But the letter as written shows the raw emotions I felt at the time.

Tuesday September 19, 1995

Hi Everyone –

Round Two – Marilyn –

So, the last few days (actually weeks) have been interesting to say the least. After preparing for and being disappointed by Hurricane Luis of about two weeks ago, we were not let down by Marilyn. I don’t know if people were caught by surprise, were too lax after the close call by Luis, or a combination of both, but St. Thomas was not prepared for Marilyn. (Neither was the National Weather Service for that matter.)

I first heard about Marilyn on Thursday morning. It was a relatively small tropical storm that was about to hit Barbados – no big deal. At a meeting Thursday afternoon at school (we started school a week late this year due to Hurricane Luis) people were a bit more serious about the hurricane. However, no one really considered us in imminent danger. Marci bought a few more things at the store (water and a few canned goods) and I did laundry (thank God). When we awoke on Friday morning, the situation was more serious. It was upgraded to a category 1 hurricane with a very small radius of hurricane force winds. However, it appeared to be heading directly for us. Schools were cancelled, banks and most stores were closed. Basically people didn’t know enough to prepare on Thursday, and it still seemed like a relatively small, not-too-powerful storm.

Teachers met at school to put things away in their rooms. Friday was payday (the first check since last June) but banks were closed, so people couldn’t get cash. Luckily, Marci was able to get a bit out of our local ATM. I took a few new teachers to do a bit of shopping. Again, as with Luis a week or so before, there was a tense feeling on the island. We were able to get a bit more water and some junk food, which we found particularly comforting when subjected to the weaker winds of the storm. (During the stronger winds the feeling is a bit more like vomiting than eating.) We also got some sandwiches at 10 A.M. for a nice pre-storm lunch.

The preparations this time were minor compared to those for Luis. I suppose this was for two reasons. For one, a lot of stuff was still tied down. In addition, the information we received indicated that this just was not a major storm. Dangerous, yes, but not this dangerous.

A friend of ours, Mike, with whom I teach, decided to stay with us during the hurricane. His roommate has a new girlfriend, and you just do not want to spend a hurricane by yourself. We were at our house in the early afternoon watching T.V. and waiting. The power was going on and off, on and off and finally, it stayed off. (It first went off at 6:30 A.M., but came on a few minutes later.) Basically there was not much to do but wait….play cards, read in the dark (we had hurricane shutters up), and listen to the radio. The radio at least tracked the progress of Hurricane Marilyn in 3-hour increments. Since the newspaper provides little maps with grids showing longitude and latitude, you can plot the storm to see that it is coming to smack you in the face and turn you upside down. We plotted until about 11 P.M. Friday night when things started to go not so well. (But I’ll get to that in a minute.)

Until 11 P.M. things were fine. We had a beer or two. We heard on the radio about St. Croix – about 40 miles south of us. (Boats messed up, a few roofs gone, a trailer park destroyed, and some other things that seem minor compared to what we’re dealing with now.) The hurricane was still relatively compact – hurricane force winds spreading out only 30 miles from the eye. However, it was upgraded to a category 2 storm with sustained winds of about 100 miles per hour. Despite all of this, the weather service said the eye was going to miss St. Thomas – pass to its west. (Of course Marci and I live on the western end of St. Thomas.) We slept for a few minutes until about 11.

We were woken up by a thud on the hurricane shutter on the front window. We didn’t know what it was and it was becoming far too windy to go out to check. I guess we didn’t get too much sleep after this. We were also listening to the radio about this time. During hurricanes here people call in and tell what’s happening. Most of the night – up to this point – people were saying they were getting strong gusts, but things were fine. Somehow, and we haven’t figured out how yet, everybody was saying exactly what speed their gusts were – 75 mph, 95 mph, etc. How did they know? Anyway, about the time we heard the thud, the calls on the radio became a bit more panicked. In particular there was a woman screaming that her roof blew off and she did not know what to do. It turned out that she was one of very many people that lost their roofs. As a matter of fact, just losing your roof turned out to be relatively lucky. However, this woman was so panicked that it completely unnerved me – I finally realized that I really did not want to be in the middle of a hurricane, even if it would be a great story for my grand children. Listening to this woman was not fun. I guess I sort of lost track of the radio at this point, even though it was still on. All I know is that there were many, many more panicked calls.

As the radio was fading from my consciousness water was entering both my consciousness, and the apartment.

We noticed a big puddle forming in the kitchen. Our landlord had said the apartment might flood because water flows under the house and seeps into our basement-like apartment. (We had dug a ditch behind the house before Luis to try to divert the water to prevent flooding.) However, when we found the source, we weren’t really sure that it was seeping up through the floor. Behind the toilet, where the pipe comes out of the wall, the water was gushing out. We started to bail into the tub. We guessed water was flowing at about ½ gallon per minute, and there was no stopping it. So we bailed and mopped and mopped and bailed. We tried to rig something up to make it easier to work, but it wasn’t so easy since the pipe was behind the toilet and only 2 inches off the ground. Mike and I decided that the only way to solve the problem is to somehow stop the flow. This was after an hour and a half of bailing while listening to hysterical people on the radio. It was not fun.

Finally, we heard the winds die down. I guess the National Weather Service reports were wrong. They had predicted the eye would go to our west, but in fact, we were in it.

Now the eye of a hurricane is a very unpredictable thing. Before the eye hits, the winds are coming from one direction. But after the eye passes, they pick up just as strong, if not stronger, from the other direction. While the eye is over you, it’s relatively calm. The unpredictable part is how long the calm will last. It can be anywhere from a few to 45 minutes.

Saturday September 23, 1995

We knew that the only way to prevent us from being flooded out was to stop the flow of water. Mike and I decided to run upstairs to see if there was a general flow to the whole apartment we could shut off. In the relative calm of the eye, we ran upstairs to find that our landlord (he turned 78 today) had just had an angina attack. Luckily he took some medicine and seemed okay for the time being. He told us of two pipes to shut off that might possibly work. We ran as quickly as we could to the back of the house and into the back room, not knowing when the eye would pass and the winds would pick up. We found the two valves that said “apartment” and shut them off.

Unfortunately, when we returned to our apartment, we found the water still flowing. We ran back upstairs again to discuss the matter with our landlord. His only suggestion was to go to the back room to try to find this cement that hardens in water. Now the problem is that this guy never throws anything away. He can’t. I assumed that we would never be able to find it. Luckily, I was wrong. It was exactly where he said it would be. We made sure the wind wasn’t gusting yet and ran back to the apartment. I don’t really know about this, because I was too busy mixing cement, but Marci said that the eye passed and winds picked up just after Mike and I returned to the apartment. I guess we had good timing.

So we mixed up the cement, stuck it into the hole where the water was still gushing out, and plugged the hole. It actually worked! We cleaned up the bathroom a bit, since we realized it was going to be our home for the next several hours. We had about 2 inches of rain in the apartment, but that would have to be dealt with after the storm.

Since we’d been so busy, we didn’t really have time to concentrate on what else was going on. The radio stations had all been knocked off the air by this time and we could hear lots and lots of stuff flying around outside. This is when you move into the safest room in your house – the one without windows. So we went into the bathroom and waited. It was extremely scary. At one point we heard lots of crashing glass and metal as assumed that the roof of the house blew off. Although the sound was terrible, it didn’t sound nearly as bad as it was when we looked the next morning.

It’s really very hard to describe how scary it was. I kind of compared it to sea sickness, where you just want to be shot or pushed overboard to be put out of your misery. Physically it’s not as bad as seasickness, although there were times I was so nervous that I did think I was going to vomit. I guess the fear comes from thinking you’re going to die and just not really knowing what’s going on outside. Those are valid things to be scared of.

By this time, it’s probably about 2 A.M. Since we couldn’t do much we all tried to sleep a bit on the cold, hard tiles of the bathroom. Perhaps sleeping is an escape, or perhaps it’s just a way to pass the time. Whatever. We were all able to sleep a bit, and it did help.

At about 4 A.M. or so, the worst was over. The winds had died down some and you knew the major damage had been done. We left the bathroom to find no damage to our apartment, but about 2 inches of water on the floor. Marci and I went to sleep in the bed and Mike fell asleep on the couch. We were exhausted.

We awoke at about 8 A.M., ready to view the damage. Since there really was no damage to our apartment, we assumed the best. We were wholly unprepared for what we saw outside. The pictures probably tell it best, but you’ll have to deal with words for now.

Stay tuned for part two, to be published in a future post.

Grilled Shrimp

This grilled shrimp, while having nothing to do with the hurricane, reminds me of a recipe one might be served in the Caribbean. Simple to prepare with tangy lime juice, fragrant garlic, and just a pinch of spice, I can picture eating them on one of St. Thomas’ nicer days, in the warm Caribbean breeze.

½ hour, serves 2

1 lb. extra-large or jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined, tails left intact

2 limes, juiced, about ¼ cup

2 large garlic cloves, peeled and pressed or grated

2 Tbsp. olive oil

½ tsp. kosher salt

¼ tsp. fresh ground black pepper

⅛ to ¼ tsp. cayenne pepper

neutral oil (vegetable, canola) to brush on grill

3 or 4 skewers

1. If using bamboo skewers, soak in cold water to minimize burning during grilling.
2. Peel and devein the shrimp, leaving the tails intact. Blot dry with paper towels and place in a large bowl.
3. Mix all other ingredients together in a small bowl and add to shrimp. Toss shrimp to completely coat with marinade. Marinate for 15 minutes to a half hour while grill heats up. (Do not leave the shrimp to marinate for longer than a half hour as the citric acid in the lime juice will start to “cook” the shrimp, as with ceviche.)
4. Prepare grill for high heat direct cooking.
5. Thread skewers through shrimp in two places – near largest part of body and closest to tail – to reduce chances of them slipping off skewers.
6. Using a wadded-up paper towel and long tongs, brush oil on the hot grill to prevent shrimp from sticking. Place shrimp on grill and allow them to sear without moving until pink on bottom and just starting to char in spots, about 3 minutes. Carefully flip shrimp and grill on other side until cooked through and just starting to char, about an additional 2 minutes. Serve hot.

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