Hurricanes An Account of the 1944 Ravage of Bodden Town and West Bay
Each year Cayman Islands residents facethe prospect of severe weather causing damage to persons and properties.For most of recent memory such damage has been minimal comparedto that suffered by other islands. Yet there are still lessonsto be learned from storms that are now decades past, such as thelate-season November 1944 hurricane which ravaged the Bodden Towncoast and cut off West Bay from George Town.
All information contained in this GovernmentInformation Service release is taken from a recent National ArchiveMemory Bank interview with Janilee Clifford. In it Mrs Clifford,who at the time was 12 years old, tells interviewer Heather McLaughlinabout the storm's effects on her family, their home and theirBodden Town neighbourhood.
At first, she says, she and her youngersisters were measuring how far up the tide washed sticks theyhad tossed in the surf. By the time the sticks reached their frontdoor, they could tell that their parents were becoming increasinglyworried.
Janilee Clifford:Anyway, about 4:00 p.m., it got so bad that my mother startedto cry and my father said, "Okay, lets go. Get 'em ready.
Heather McLaughlin: Now,your parents would clearly remember '32?
JC: Yes. That's the year I was born.
HM:Yes, so that would be in their minds, why she was getting frightened.
JC: Shewas getting frightened because, in the 1932 hurricane, I got washedoff the bed in my grandmother's house. My mother and father werejust- they were trying to get out of the house with me- they weretrying to put a few things together- and I'm in the middle ofthe bed, and they're on either side, and the sea just came andwashed over them and my mother just caught me on the side thatshe was on And then when it went back, out the door and
HM:So she's got this all fresh in her mind, now, in 1944.
JC: In'44, so she's crying!
HM:And the water's coming right up to your front door.
While modern-day Cayman relies on the NationalWeather Service for accurate, up-to-date information, Mr Clifford,like most people of the time, had only a barometer. When closemonitoring indicated a dramatic drop in atmospheric pressure,he and his young family evacuated their home.
JC: Sohe got- there were six of us then- Cassidy, the first son andmy oldest brother, he was four months old. And I remember theyput him in a carton box with all of his little clothes aroundhim and we didn't even have plastic, in those days to keep therain off or anything.
HM:No that's right; yes.
JC: Theyhad a table cloth, the oil cloth- took that off the table andput over his box, to take him with his clothes.
HM:To try and keep him a little bit dry.
JC: Myfather had him in the box, and then my mother was at the end,and the five of us girls in between. They told us to hold on toone another 'cause it was blowing real hard then and we went toMary Lawrence's in-laws' house, Addie and Bertie Woods house.There were about 12 families in that house, and I remember thatnight that the wind, it sounded like it was coming right throughall the sides of the house and I can remember having hysteria.I was shaking and I couldn't stop. It was terrible.
JC: I tellyou I was scared because- the smaller ones were sleeping and wewere all on one bed, my mother and the six of us, 'cause theydidn't have but two- three bedrooms in that house, and a lot ofpeople were there, but I guess because she had a small baby theygave us one bed for ourselves. And we stayed there, we didn'tget back to our house. That hurricane was slow-moving and it wasnot like the '32. It wasn't a tidal wave like the '32, it washeavy winds, but very slow moving, so we stayed there 'til Friday,before we got back to our house.
HM:A whole week! A whole week!
JC: Dayafter day after day- I remember on about Wednesday or Thursday,the rains had stopped some then, and my second sister Floris,the two of us, they sent us to Mr Logan Bodden's shop to get somefood. I can remember that they told us to be careful because itwas still blowing- blowing hard enough to blow us off the road,where the Seventh day Adventist Church is in Bodden town. I rememberbeing blown like beyond that, and the sand. I can remember thesand stinging our legs.
When a hurricane strikes the damage to personsand their possessions can be so horrific that people sometimesforget about another important aspect-the toll on the naturalenvironment. In 1944 local flora and fauna were decimated.
JC: Thatstorm- it had started to abate. They knew it was passing, I guessthe eye had passed like before, maybe Tuesday or so- it was avery slow-moving storm. But I remember when we went [to Mr Logan'sshop]. My father had told us that the kitchen had blown down,so we were curious and my mother said, "No, don't go backto the house, go straight to Mr Logan's." But we were evenfrightened then. And when we did go to our house, I remember goingto the beach and the beach was swept clean of all the lavendersand juniper trees and whatever trees were there- even the lion'stongue was swept away, 'cause a lot of that was on the other sideof our house in Bodden Town.
And I remember seeing the first feathersticking up out of the sand- the white sand. And we pulled-youknow, just curious. That was a teal, a pond fowl, and as far asyour eye could see, we were pulling them out of the sand by thehundreds. They were all dead and we didn't try to eat them oranything, 'cause the storm had lasted for so long.
HM: Were there a lot of dead fish around.
JC: Yesthere were lots of dead fish. Well I can remember so many birdsand fish buried up in the sand too.
HM:So high had the water actually come?
JC: Thewater came right to our porch, but it didn't wash inside the house,because my grandfather, he wouldn't move, he stayed there.
Fortunately for the Jackson family, asidefrom the damage to their kitchen, their home remained intact forthe most part.
HM:Your house was alright, but the kitchen was destroyed? The kitchenwould be down in the back?
JC: Thekitchen was not attached to the house. They had a - what theycall it, trampway, between the kitchen and the house, and thatwas gone. All the pots and pans were all up on the cliff, almost,behind our house.
HM:Well, its incredible to me that the sea would cross the road andget all the way to your father's house. That's a long way fromthe sea there, really, isn't it?
JC: Thesea was bad. It was not like the '32 but it was bad.
HM: Yes. You see this is something that I don't think people appreciatetoday, because they talk about building the houses strong andeverything, but they're doing it to resist the wind, but reallythe biggest danger is the sea.