Janet Sinclair, 68, who is deaf, partially blind and has a speech impediment, and her daughter Alvernia Johnson-Roden are thankful their lives were spared despite Hurricane Beryl hitting their Portland Cottage in Clarendon.
They took refuge at relatives' homes in the area to weather the July 3 storm, but then ventured outside to see widespread destruction.
Johnson-Roden recalled going the morning after the hurricane to check on her mother's house, further down the coast in a flood-prone town.
She found the three-bedroom home completely destroyed and all of Sinclair's possessions lost.
In an interview Greener Last Thursday, Johnson-Rhoden explained that as a result, she welcomed her mother back into her home. They are now living in the kitchen, which was the least damaged area by the July 3 storm and has been temporarily converted into a multi-purpose living space.
“When I came back and looked inside and saw the kitchen was in the safe, I said, 'Yes! Thank you, Jesus! I have a place to stay,'” she exclaimed, noting that she had to walk carefully through the crumbling building.
“The kitchen saved me. My mother was in the kitchen.[because] “Everything else is gone. I have a bed and a thin mattress, so I dried it out and put it in the kitchen and I'm sleeping there. The stove is there, the water barrel is there, the refrigerator is there. That's all I'm sleeping on,” Johnson-Rhoden explained.
Hurricane-force winds blew the roof off their house, leaving holes in it despite the tarpaulins they were covering it with, leaving them exposed to the elements and prone to flooding every time it rains.
The swollen, unstable wooden floors still bear traces of the knee-high floodwaters that submerged the house last Thursday.
“maximum [thing] If I don't have somewhere to sleep, I'll get more anxious and have to go to other people's houses, and maybe they won't be comfortable with me. [there]and my mother has nowhere else to go, which just makes it worse,” she said.
“I feel at ease that God has entrusted me with the kitchen, but I have to be careful with the gas stove,” she added.
They're now living in clothes baskets and old suitcases filled with their clean clothes and other belongings they've saved, and everything in their room is elevated off the floor in case it rains.
A preliminary national assessment revealed that 321 homes were destroyed by the hurricane, with 133 of those in Clarendon, 617 homes in the parish sustained serious damage, and 493 homes sustained minor damage, making Clarendon the parish that suffered the most damage, with a total of 1,243 homes damaged.
“I'll tell you the truth, it's not easy here,” Johnson-Roden said of Portland Cottage, where she has lived for about 12 years.
Originally from St Mary, she went to Portland Cottage with her husband.
The couple separated, but she remained in the community to ensure her mother was cared for.
She said she immediately needs two beds and mattresses so she and her mother can sleep more comfortably.
Request for relocation
But her real wish is to move out of the area.
It's a dream shared by many other residents in the community, who last week expressed hope that the government would help them relocate.
“If I were to buy a house now, I'd move away. Since I've been here… I've been through a lot here. When you're in St. Mary, you definitely get storms, but it depends on where you are. There's no flooding and there are lots of trees, so you can fly your windbreaker a lot,” she added.
Her mother's home had previously been severely damaged by Hurricanes Ivan and Dean.
Because she could not afford new materials, she rebuilt it both times using the same zinc and boards, weakening the structure each time.
Hurricane Ivan, a Category 4 storm, struck the island in September 2004, forcing the evacuation of about 12,000 people and killing 15. Hurricane Dean, also a Category 4 storm, struck Jamaica in August 2007, killing six people.
Sinclair's son has been helping her clean up and so far they've been able to start building a temporary one-room structure, but they need more materials to finish it.
“We're asking for help so my mother can fix up her house,” Johnson-Roden said, noting that her mother was never happy living in the area under those conditions.
“She always sneaks in to tell me she can't be here because she's not comfortable. I used to take her out into the garden and let her sleep,” she said.
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