The "20th Anniversary Of Hurricane Luis" Story

The island of St. Martin/Sint Maarten was directly under this.

It was an ordinary day.  Checking the Traveltalk- online (TTOL) forum to see what is happening on my favorite vacation location, St. Martin.  One of the threads was titled "Remember 20 Years Ago Today" and was started by BeachKitten who lives in the Maryland/DC Metro area.  She wrote: Thoughts are with the people of St. Maarten, as we recall the loss and devastation experienced in September 1995 from Hurricane Luis.  Luis forever changed the island we love.  It certainly changed the part I've known best, Mullet Bay ….. and redirected the path of many lives for our island friends.  

An entire resort in Mullet Bay was a wiped out by Luis.

20 years ago this month the island of St. Martin/Sint Maarten was hit by Hurricane Luis which was an extremely destructive Cape Verde-type hurricane as well as one of the strongest, deadliest and most notable hurricanes of the 1995 Atlantic hurricane season with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph.  It caused catastrophic damage in Antigua, Barbuda, St. Barts, Anguilla as well as St. Martin.  The category 4 storm accounted for 19 deaths, left nearly 70,000 homeless and wrought roughly $3 billion in damage across the affected islands.  Hurricane Luis was the most devastating hurricane to strike the northern Leeward Islands in the 20th century.  

Boats were strewn everywhere!

Hurricane Luis occurred seven years before Carol and I, as well as traveling friends Jerry and Just Sue, made our first trip to the island.  We enjoyed our first trip so much that Carol and I have returned just about every year since, twice one year.  There have been tropical storms as well as hurricanes strike the island since that fateful year, but none of the magnitude and with as much devastation as Luis.  A writer, Clive Hodge, who lived on the island made some comments on another web site recently where he told this story.  An excerpt from the story goes like this:  I had done my part, making sure the hurricane shutters could close properly and had walked through the yard, removing all loose objects I found.  But I was not at all worried.  He only began to worry when a well-known hurricane expert said that the hurricane of this magnitude will leave its toll.  He continued:  When it did hit us, the winds were devastating from the start.  Hour after hour after hour, it mercilessly pounded our island.  We were glued for hours to our battery-operated radio.  Thank God that most phone lines remained intact.  After the relentless pounding had gone on for hours, I was longing to hear Glen Carty announce that it would be over soon.  Instead, I heard that … the worst was yet to come.  

Entire neighborhoods were destroyed.

The unthinkable happened at about 4:00pm, when our roof, which had survived many hurricanes, just couldn't hold on any longer and was suddenly gone; not zinc by zinc, but the entire roof lifted off the house in one piece and was, well … gone.  Only the rafters, which were embedded in the concrete wall, remained intact.  My wife grabbed our seven-year-old daughter and we fled downstairs.  We, together with our dog and six newly-born puppies, lay downstairs on a piece of carton for what seemed like forever.  None of the puppies survived the ordeal.  The entire time we were downstairs, we were exposed to hurricane-force winds that came through the opening at the front of the building and exit through the back.  The noise was terrifying, it sounded like a jumbo jet passing through our house.  The next morning, when we dared to venture out of the house, we were amazed at the extent of the destruction all around us.  We had to seek lodging elsewhere.  I was appalled by all the looting that followed the hurricane.  I would never have expected that our people would resort to looting.  

More devastation on the French side of the island.

All the schools on the island were damaged; we sent our daughter to Aruba to attend school there.  They sent an Air Aruba plane to St. Maarten to pick up children and adults and take them to Aruba free of charge.  Curacao, along with Aruba and Bonaire were very helpful in fixing downed wires and helping us get electricity back. Even with all this extra help, we were out of running water and electricity for about three months.  We were cut off from communication with the outside world for about three weeks, and not able to call our children overseas to let them know that we had lost most of our home but were still alive and well.  Two days after the devastation, we took a drive around our neighborhood and I saw a depressing sight in Ebenezer that made me fight back tears.  I saw three teenagers sitting on the sidewalk; behind them was a foundation on which their home had once stood.  The only thing left was the toilet bowl, which had been firmly fastened in the concrete foundation.  Lord, may we never again have to go through another Luis.  I have read many other stories about Hurricane Luis as described by residents of St. Maarten, but Mr. Hodge's story tells it the best.  Can't imagine what they must have gone through.  TTOL comments about the storm recall returning to the island a year or two later and still seeing the devastation.  Carol and I first visited in 2001 and saw none of the devastation that was described by those who went through the storm.  I have included a video that tells of the storm.  After viewing it you will may wonder how anyone could have survived and how they were able to come back from the storm.  Here's hoping I never see something as terrible as Hurricane Luis.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.