50 Years since Hurricane FIFI

Fifi hit Honduras on the night of the 17th of September, on the 18th we knew we had been struck by a terrific catastrophe. I was living on Utila, an island about thirty Kms off of the north coast of Honduras. We used to live on a hill which had a complete view of the harbour plus the sea beyond. Around 5:00 p.m. I was able to see heavier and heavier waves coming from the east crossing the outer part of the harbour, say a mile from where I was.

People here are used to heavy storms, but this was a major hurricane so at around this time, 5:00 p.m. people started moving from houses adjacent to the sea to the houses that were further inland, in fact behind the hill where I used to live. It was hundreds of people moving, and I could see they were worried. I, personally, was excited, i was going to be thirteen years old a week from then and this was about the most exciting thing I had lived through, at least knowingly. Actually I was born in Belize City in 1961, five weeks after I was born Hurricane Hattie hit, it killed over 1,000 people in the city, my mother says she just shoved me in a drawer which seemed the safest place around. Of course, that hurricane I can't remember.

So at home it was just my Mother and I, my dad was on the coast, plus two local girls decided to stay the night with us. I fell asleep around ten, only to be awakened a little after eleven by what sounded like jumbo jets right out my window. I mean the noise was terrible. About ten feet from that window was a huge genip tree probably a hundred years old, that wind just tore it out, roots and all, luckily it went downhill, if it had hit my room, I probably would not be writing this.

Then at around two thirty, there was this incredible calm, I went out down the hill to see what had happened, there was water on the street but I could see no destruction. A lot of people were out and one of the guys told me ok, kid go back home, this is the center, winds will be back in a few minutes. And certainly that wind returned but coming from another direction, but in the end we lived it out and I was able to fall asleep. Around eight a small airplane woke me up, it was my Dad, he rented a plane (that was cheap back then) to see how we had fared, he also dropped a newspaper which we had to lend to everyone, no other written news source was available on the island that day. And boy was that paper bad news, at least five thousand people were dead across the north coast of the country, in the end it was probably double that.

The island itself hardly suffered any damage, there are no rivers on it, so no flooding. The only mishaps were twelve old empty wood houses destroyed plus a new house that was being built. But there was a shrimp boat at the harbour which was thrown inland about a half mile, the insurance company said it was cheaper to buy a new one than to try and retrieve that boat, I guess it must still be there.

Anyway that happened fifty years ago, which just helps to remind me I am getting quite old.