Eloise Thompson sat under a tree outside her Palmetto Point home with her daughter and grandchildren to escape the summer heat yesterday, a day after Hurricane Irene slammed into Eleuthera and tore off part of the house. Thompson, a widow, said she remembered the feeling of complete dread she felt when she returned to the house after the storm, but it did not take her long to focus on the things she needed to be grateful for.
It's why she relaxed with family in the shadow of her wrecked home instead of dwelling on the damage that was done. "It was terrible, very scary because even by my daughter's house we had to go out in the storm because her roof was going," Thompson told The Nassau Guardian.
"...When I came down the street I will never forget that feeling. When I looked down here and saw my home all damaged, it was heartbreaking. I started to panic."
But like many other residents who buckled down as Irene roared through like a freight train Wednesday, Thompson felt luckily to be alive. On Eleuthera, some people like Thompson still remember well storms from as far back as Betsy in 1965. The island was slammed by Andrew in 1992 and Floyd in 1999. So Eleutherians know a thing or two about rebuilding after hurricanes.
Yesterday, Eleuthera residents, like many others across The Bahamas, were picking up the pieces, cleaning their yards and roads, and swapping stories about the terror they felt as Irene pummeled the island as a category three storm.
Businessman Philip Bethel said it will cost thousands of dollars to repair his establishment.
The top of his gas station was twisted by the storm. And not too far away, a Bahamas Telecommunications Company tower was a mangled mess. "We're indeed grateful, but Eleuthera was really hit," Bethel said. "From central Eleuthera going south, they really bore the pain of this whole episode as far as Hurricane Irene is concerned."
Tavares Knowles said he and his family, who live in Palmetto Point, had to run for their lives after the hurricane ripped off a portion of their roof. "We were trying to get the kids to lie down in the front room because it was too warm in the bedroom and then all of a sudden we heard what sounded like a can opening and the roof came off and the house started leaking," said his wife, Tanya.
"It was like buckets of water coming in the living room. So we had to gather the kids and get our things and run to my sister-in-law's house three o'clock in the morning." Mrs. Knowles said she prayed the rest of the roof stayed on as they rushed out. She and her husband have a two-year-old daughter and a seven-month-old son. Yesterday, South Eleuthera MP Oswald Ingraham said Eleuthera escaped what could have been an even more serious impact.
"We have been very fortunate indeed," said Ingraham, who spoke with The Nassau Guardian at the Governor's Harbour Airport where a small plane lay crashed across a fence a day after it was tossed in the storm. The center of Hurricane Irene passed over Eleuthera before heading over Abaco, where significant damage was also reported in some areas.
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