History
Sea and LandDisasters in Years Gone by
Will Jackson
Before ever a human setfoot on the Cayman Islands, they just laid there as rocks in adeep, blue ocean. Surely, they were beaten and plagued by manysevere weathers throughout thousands of years.
Settlement of course didnot change or deter in any way the severe weather conditions thatpersisted in blowing across the Islands. The settlers were indeedplagued with property destruction year after year. Because theylived by the sea, the sea was their tormentor even as it was theirSaviour. The settlers had no means to build strong, storm proofhouses to dwell in; so they were homeless and forced to buildagain.
It was not always that anarea hurricane destroyed only the land. Often, the men at seasuffered most, with loss of their schooners and their own lives.There was no advance warning to be had concerning an approachingstorm in those primitive times, also most hurricanes were precededby days of flat calm, making it impossible for the poor vessel,dependent on sail and the wind to make headway, to escape theapproaching weather leaving the poor seamen to fight the battlefor survival.
Modern ships on the ocean,because of their sophisticated equipment and their advanced weatherreports need not be caught in devastating storms; they can knowthe weather for hundreds of miles away from their position, thusgiving them a chance to steer away from trouble. Sails have becomeobsolete today, having given way to motor and steam.
Apart from the tidal waveof 1785, nothing is recorded of the weathers of the 18th Centuryand their effects on the Cayman Islands. Yet there were some disastrousevents during those times. It is said that the wind in the bigblow of 1785 was so terrific in its force that it left only onetree standing on South West Point. Every house on the island wasdamaged or destroyed besides the stone-built Pedro Castle at Pedro;while at the same time many lives were lost both on the land andon the sea.
There was a tidal wave afterwhich it was said that one could walk straight from North WestPoint to South West Point even as in a cleared desert land. Infact, the island being then in the very early stages of settlement,the dwellings were very few and spaced far between. The effectsof the hurricanes of 1812, 1826 and 1836 are somewhat unknown,except for the old, sad tales of the many schooners and men thatwere lost during those terrible events.
In the year 1838, GrandCayman suffered from two hurricanes in the space of four weeks,and even though no lives were lost on the land, over 100 homeswere destroyed. There was at that time about 18 schooners in theIsland's fleet out of which number, 13 were wrecked. Fruit treesof whatever quality were uprooted, all crops in the field weredevastated even the island's two meeting houses where thepeople met to worship God and to receive consolation and strengthto carry on life, they were demolished. There was scarcely anythingleft with which to carry on, other than faith and trust in a LivingGod.
Even as the winds abatedand the waves receded, the people once again rallied to the taskof rebuilding and once again cooperated, setting together thepieces for the restructuring of their lives. The forefathers indeedseem to have been a people of great courage and faith; how elsecould they survive under such trying circumstances as attendedthem year-to-year in this poor country.
Much more is recorded ofthe storm of 1846 than of the preceding years disasters. An eyewitness,one Mr. Tulloch Coe of Spotts wrote a very personal account ofOctober 10, 1846. He said all the lower part of the island wassubmerged with seawater. The water flowed freely right acrossthrough Newlands and Savannah, destroying all vegetation and herbagefor man and beast wherever it ran.
With the exception of theschooner Eliza, all the islands vessels lying in Red Bay Harbourwere lost or wrecked; most of them in George Town were thrownon the rocks, a few being repaired afterward. They were mostlyall laden with sugar from a wreck off the Jardine coast, off theisland of Cuba. Three vessels were laying off that coast at thetime the hurricane came on. Two were lost and one was driven inlandtoward the island of Cuba; nevertheless, the crews were all savedfrom the wrecks and later sailed safely home on the schooner Eliza.
Mr. Coe continues his firsthand account of the October 10, 1846 hurricane: All the frontlands and roads were filled with rubbish and stones being inundated.The heaps of stones along Spotts and parts of Prospect remainedinto parts of the 20th Century. The Bodden Town area was filledwith salt water, all the wells from Savannah and Spotts throughBodden Town were rendered useless for human use except what wasknown as First Well in Bodden Town.
For more than a year peoplecame from miles away to obtain drinking water from that well.
Families living in Red Bayhad to be transported by large canoes along the public road toplaces of shelter, wherever it could be found. Some people foundshelter in the nearby cliffs all night, while a 50-ton schoonercould float around some homes. There was nothing left for foodexcept the roots of the bitter cassava to which they had to turnfor food.
No doubt that event wasthat which induced the Islanders to make the bammy, which becamea national dish.
Anyway, during those terribledays of 1846-1847 help came to the people in the form of two shipwrecks in close proximity, one laden with general cargo and theother carrying dressed lumber. Neither ship was salvaged, thusthe people's spirits were revived and taking new courage, theysoon began to return to a semi normal life, even as before thegreat tempest. The south side of Grand Cayman suffered a totalloss of their possessions at that time, but no lives were losteither on land or sea. Truly God was good to those settlers fromyear to year, as they watched their meagre possessions disappearbefore their very eyes while they themselves survived to fighton.
Moving on to the year 1876there was another blow up that lasted from the 12th to the 17thof October. October always seems to have been the fearful monthand not September, as the old folks thought; while the turbulentyears were always in the sixth year of the decade.
Once again most of the houseswere shattered; but the settlers had long ago learned how to hidethemselves away from the fury of the tempest by taking shelterin the many caves and high cliffs in and around the island.
Cayman Brac and Little Caymanseem to have escaped many of the disasters that struck Grand Cayman.In the hurricane of 1876 some 18 schooners were cast on the beachesand reefs. The island took the appearance of a whole scale, modernwar aftermath. There was debris from demolished houses everywhere;wrecked vessels and uprooted trees to add to the gory lookingscene. The island escaped a severe hurricane in 1877, but nineschooners with 64 Caymanians aboard went down in the MosquitoCay Bay.
In 1903 there was a greatcyclone that blew across the land, all the vessels in George TownHarbour put out to sea to weather the storm, but only two returned.In 1909, the island miraculously escaped a terrifying hurricane,but the schooner Bertha was lost on her way from New York. In1910 a mini tidal wave washed out roads all along the water frontareas. The roof of the school in West Bay was blown away.
Much more disastrous wasa hurricane of unknown intensity that lashed Cayman Brac for justone hour on August 13, 1915. Of 261 houses on the island, onlyone remained intact and 260 were totally destroyed; yet only onechild died.
The old courthouse, a schooland a lighthouse were all swept away. The new Government building,housing on the ground floor the Post and Customs Offices and abovethem the court house that had been completed two weeks earlier,had its roof ripped off and the building was torn away from it'sfoundation. Many people who had buried their life's savings inthe ground never saw it again.
Public relief had to begiven to the Brac from Grand Cayman and Jamaica. Crops had beenmuch set back.
In the midst of World War1, on September 24, 1917, another hurricane struck Grand Caymanin full force. Crops that had been severely set back by a terribledrought suffered total destruction from the hurricane. However,in spite of all that has been written about the storms over theCayman Islands and shed vast destruction from time to time, neverhas there been anything recorded equal with November 1932.
Of this we shall talk inthe next week's issue. Hurricane episodes are not past. Be preparedfor the unwelcome guest, which may come at any time.
May the good Lord spareus and bless us through another hurricane season that is almostopen to these lands!
Will Jackson
Seafarer and noted
Caymanian Historian