Tomas

When we were first making our plans to move to Barbados, we were frequently asked about whether or not Barbados gets hit by hurricanes. We would reply with what we'd found in our research - "Very rarely, only about every 60 years." Yes, we knew it had been about 59 years since the last one hit, but we still couldn't really imagine that we'd be here for the next "big one". Tropical Storm Tomas hadn't quite reached hurricane force when it hit us. It was only gusting up to 70mph and not bringing sustained winds at that speed. But it was close enough to a hurricane for us! Locals said this was the biggest, most damaging storm on Barbados since sometime in the mid-1980's. There was very little warning for Barbadians that this storm was coming. Apparently the person who sounds the "alarm" and issues a warning was off island. And the person left in charge was wary of jumping the gun. So, it really hit us all by surprise. Thankfully, no one in the island died in the storm. There were roofs blown off and a few houses destroyed. The majority of the destruction came through fallen trees. So, on Friday evening the rain and wind started. It wasn't until the night on Friday that the storm was really rocking. By about 2am on Saturday morning, the wind was howling, the power went out, and we tried to sleep. The kids slept through it all. We woke up the next morning to lots of rain, trees down, power lines down, etc. We pretty much stayed inside on Saturday. Luckily I was semi-prepared for a hurricane so we were not without water or food or radio or flashlights. By Sunday the rain was finally starting to slow down, but there was a river flowing behind our house. We were able to get out and survey the damage, at least on the campus. Isaiah and Luke helped the students to clear fallen palm branches and move fallen trees. They were all eager to get OUT and DO something after a few days stuck inside without electricity. On Sunday afternoon, the students put together a little bbq. The stores were open, so they went to get a few supplies. We had frozen beef in the quickly thawing freezer, so we made a bunch of burgers and we trekked over to the college to eat. Luckily the airport was up and running by Monday morning, and Mom got an early flight off the island. We were still out of power, but expected it to come on in the next day or two. Unfortunately, power wasn't restored for 10 (!) days. It was a little much for us and there was one point somewhere in the middle where we just had to escape the house and we headed to a hotel for the day. We used the pool, had a room to hang out in and check our email, and we ate out a few times. It was a really nice escape. On about day 7, we got a generator, which was a great sanity-saver and we were able to at least have the coffee pot, refrigerator, washing machine, and fans for parts of the day. We were thrilled when the power finally came back on, though it was another week before we had Internet and phone.

There were definitely moments when I was at the end of my rope, ready to pack our bags and get outta here. But, there were some sweet (or at least memorable) moments along the way. We'll remember playing flashlight games in the "cool" room in the evenings, the kids sleeping in almost nothing but still being sweaty w/o fans on them, spending nearly every morning at the mall for a week, the pure contentedness and joy of the kids in spite of the circumstances, the kids watching movies on their little cd player, having the biggest pile of dirty laundry we've ever had, trip to Chefette/KFC, the thrill of having power restored...
Here are a few pics -
The major power lines that we were very anxious to see put back up -

A few minutes from our house -
Isaiah's favorite climbing tree -
The students mopping out the flood in the chapel -
Happy kids -
Some of the branches and palm fronds -

Blue sky and God's promise of care -