In The Eye Of Hugo

I witness several cyclonics events, one of them, the sadly well known Hugo, touching Guadeloupe directly. I'll try to report how I lived it.

"Hugo the animal", "Hugo the monster", here how was called one of the more violent hurricanes of XXth century. Here its history.

Hugo began as a strong depression born in South-East of the Cap Vert Islands on Friday September 8th, 1989. It stayed at the same place during two days and started to grow. It started to move West, then reached the stage of tropical storm the 11th at 12pm. At this point, the NHC of Miami took it seriously because it was an organized mass, advancing at 25 km/h (15.6 mph) on hot water, therefore favorable to a cyclonic development. Its motion let us predict something powerful, and the first forecasts announced its passage near the Petites Antilles.

It continued to grow and quickly reached hurricane stage the 13th at 12pm. At this time, the Raizet station of Météo France kept a serious eye on the phenomenon, because it seemed to move towards the Guadeloupe. Immediately, the authorities were briefing, especially National Education, because the begining of school had just taken place. They already annonced its arrival for the weekend.

The cyclone slowed down slightly and passed quickly to category 2, then 3.

Thursday, the message passed as powder trail, and population invade supermarkets. At the Baimbridge College, they thought about closing for the following day. On the other side, the PC Orsec meeting, to check the state of the troops and to prepare the event. But nobody really believed it would happened; so many times we were alarmed for nothing. Moreover, it was the third alarm number 1 since June.

No, we are a blessed country, it will not come, they are only rumours.

Hugo did not care about what we thought, and its enormous 40 km diameter was looking in our direction seriously, involving around him winds of more than 280 km/h (175 mph), enough to become a category 4 hurricane.

The 15th at midday, as all the population was preparing its arrival, alarm number 1 was started, and school were closed.

Since Wednesday when I had information, I started to imagine what could be this monster that was described like a monster. While coming back of the college, I immediately went at the family house to collect the various objects which trailed that and there.-

Pirates Television Channel 10 diffused a weather message broadcasted from The Weather Channel, in the United States. RFO and RCI showed the same alarm instructions message continuously. The threat was precise, Hugo was to struck sometimes between Saturday to Sunday.

The first hammers blows resounded around us. The day of Saturday was to prepare the arrival of the cyclone, dismounting the TV antennas and cleaning the neighbourhoods.

The afternoon was exceptionally calm. Not a breeze, not a cloud, not an insect, not a bird, not a noise, except the noise of hammers to seal the windows, and that cracking sound of the tape to solidify bay windows.

Alarm number 2 started at 3pm, but circulation was permitted until 6pm. The television shows images of the mass advancing slowly.

A few kilometers only from the coasts, Hugo, whose winds exceeded 260 km/h (162.5 mph), stopped abruptly. It seemed to observed victims, before choosing one of them.

It began to move towards the North-West, in the Guadeloupe direction. It stopped again, then set out again towards the West for Martinique. Then West-North-West towards the Domenica. And finally, it took its North-Western final trajectory, moving towards Desirade.

Enormous swell broke on all the Atlantic coast, with waves from 5 to 6m (16' to 20') high. First winds began to blow at 6:30pm, then reached Saint François at 7pm. The intensity of hurricane increases quickly and at 8pm, it was a storm. Winds already reach 120km/h (75 mph).

At Mahault Bay, as we heard on radio witnesses of people in panic, there is only strong rain and some gusts.-

But at 10pm, everything changed; the elements broke out. The trees were shaken in all directions, some branches felt, sheets and various objects were transported by the wind which reaches nearly 190 km/h (119 mph).

As we were on RCI, somebody called saying that the RFO emissions were stopped; checking made, except RCI, we didn't received anything any more.

All around the house, we heard multiple sinister noises; they are only deaf growls, lugubrious howls and wood crackings. There is neither electrical current, neither telephone, nor water. We lit with flashlights or lanterns.

I took a look by the shutters to see the situation outside, a nightmarish sight: the nails which fix the garage roof tear off one by one, letting the sheets fly away .

My father called me to help him in the living room. I ran to join him, believing to deal with opening to clog; in fact, it was worse. I find him hopelessly pushing the couch against large bay window, protected with theft protection device and anticyclone aluminium plates.

I thus help it, but with my great fear, the wind which blown outside pushed us back loosing the few painfully gained centimeters, being pressed on the plates of protection and inflated window frames, bending them dangerously. It was like if an army attacked the house, trying to come inside.

Suddenly, my mother called me at the other end of the house. Water enters the house by the window! Contrary to the floods of which I thought, it's the wind which projected rain by the interstice between the window and its framework, horizontally! Some drops touched me in the face, and I taste it: water is salted, it's sea water! In less than 5 minutes, we filled 7 buckets. Impotent, a cracking sound stopped us: the garage had just flew away.

At 1:25pm, abruptly, wind stopped; it's the eye!

My father and I left the house, trying to recognize the district. The majority of trees lost their leaves or their branches. Metal sheets and cables strew the ground, as well as the most strange objects: a gate that I believe to recognize, a standard lamp, tools for gardening. We could not really realize the carnage in the half-light. I looked at the neighbors, all seemed to be well. We returned quickly to await the following.

It didn't delayed, and at 1:50pm, as suddenly as it had fallen, the wind started to blow again even more violently than before. At this time, lowering the arms and impotent in front of the outburst of the elements, I lay down securely in the corridor.

In the early morning, I woke up. The winds were still present, but well less intensely. With my mother, whereas the sun hardly had just risen, we opened the gate.

A nightmare!

I had never seen anything like that. The landscape was unrecognizable. No more leaves and branches in trees. We had no garage anymore. Hundreds of leaves strewed the ground. In my front neighbor, a roof had landed on their lemon tree, 5m of the house. I knew this roof but I didn't recognized it. A quick look at the house enables me to know where it came from. It's our gallery which flew away. The immense traveller tree, majestic, had been lowered in the swimming pool. A piece of roof had been crushed against the house. That of another neighbor. We find the garage behind the house. There are no more electric cables and telephone cables. All the district was disfigured, and I was not yet at the end of my surprises.

After cleaning up a little bit our house, my mother, my sisters and I left towards Saint François where we have a house for holidays.

While driving, we realized the wide of the carnage. Few roofs sheets of borough Mahault the Bay had resisted, if it were not the very whole house. Everywhere, everywhere the same vision, only the most solid dwellings had held. The trees were twisted, shredded.

In Abymes, we drove closer to the most touched zone, and more we advanced, more the road became impracticable. At one moment, we had to even enter a private residence, at Morne-à-l'Eau, because the road was still cut by trees and falls. The boulevard of the Moule, which is facing the sea, had been carried partly by the fury of the waves, and the swell was still strong nearly eight hours after the end of the cyclone.

The anguish got even more stressful into the car when we saw certain strong houses destroyed or totally shaven. On the road of Saint-François, the rare cables still fixed were interlaced, like thoroughly gotten mixed up by an invisible hand; wood poles or metal poles were broken or torn off.

On our arrival at Saint-François, which was a surprise to find the house almost intact, except two metal sheets raised by the wind.

After few minutes, we had to take the road to Ste-Anne. Few dwellings were still upright. On the G. Mandel Blvd, a sailing ship had crossed the road and had demolished a house. All this damage made us pity considering those which we had undergone.

Back to Belcourt, I went to my neighbors, in order to inform me of their situation. Of all the group of friends which I formed part, only one had serious degradations at his house - his roof had been carried - and all had lost a big majority of their fruit trees.

Gradually, the medias which still functioned gave estimates of the lost materials and human lives. Three words resounded in my ears: "hundreds of million". It was big for value, but small to repair. We also declared 5 victims, then, 13 a few days after.

Quickly, the assistance and solidarity were present, not only the Martinique and the Metropolitan France ones, but also the citizens of Guadeloupe. Because no one could've made it alone!

During a few months, the archipelago was covered with covers and tents, provisional dwellings which were transformed little by little into practically permanent.

After two years, Guadeloupe took again an aspect more civilized, and the life set out again in a somnolence and an unconcern way of which we had to leave in 1995.