Life Story
Life Story
Where I come from is a small yet beautiful island in the Caribbean called Jamaica. On average we have about 2,909,714 people that lives in the island so it’s really small. We have a lot of trees and mountains where I live. Being an island in the tropical region we don’t get snow or snow storms, tornados, volcanos erupting, tsunamis and avalanches, our natural disasters are hurricanes and earthquakes.
It was in the year 2004 and we were in the tropical tycoon season otherwise known as a hurricane seasons. Our little island is I quite used to these hurricanes we have about two every year but before 2004 we only had one major hurricane called Hurricane Gilbert that did major damage to the island.
We were in the month of September in the year 2004 and everything seemed fine. We were in the hurricane season that runs from June to November of every year. Since the beginning of the hurricane season that year all the hurricanes we had were very mild and just a mere rainfall for a period of three days so whenever we would get a hurricane alert none of us took it seriously. I remember hearing over the radio that another hurricane was on its way and thinking to myself that it would be over before we knew it. “That’s another baby hurricane “people would say after hearing the news of hurricane Ivan approaching. A lot of persons in the country failed to take it seriously.
On the 2th of September 20004 the government of the country issued a hurricane watch alert. Hurricane Ivan was fast approaching and it was getting powerful and powerful. Only a couple of hours had passed and it was turned from a hurricane watch to a hurricane warning! Hurricane Ivan had reach category 5! Hurricanes go through various stages. Category one being the weakest hurricane and category five being strongest. This was the strongest hurricane there is. With winds greater than 155 mph or 135 kts Hurricane Ivan changed Jamaica. The hurricane came in the middle of the night, it was dark and you could hear the winds howling and the heavy rain beating against the window. The thunder was the loudest it’s ever been and it seemed as if it could crack the house in two. Outside you could hear branches snapping due to the powerful force of the wind and tree trunks falling to the ground.
It only lasted a couple of hours but the damage was so great. It left 18,000 people homeless and an estimated 17 people on the island were killed by Ivan. Trees, shrubs, street lights and all signs blown down; roofs of buildings were either damaged or blown off; windows and doors of houses and buildings were damaged or shattered; Landslides crushed houses and flooding damages furniture and houses. The river height increased in some areas, for some places they were totally cut off from the rest of the country because the bridge that they would use for commuting was destroyed. It was one of the worst hurricane that out country has ever had. Some persons are still trying to recover losses from that hurricane.