Let me start at the beginning. For over more than a week we realized that this monster was going to come for us, to wreak havoc on our tiny island Sint Martin in the Caribbean sea. All precautionary measures were taken by us, I honestly thought we were very well prepared. But boy, how I was wrong on this one. Despite of all our preparations, which I had expected it would have given me some peace of mind, I was super jumpy and nervous all day. My hospital job was still counting on me in the morning, in the afternoon we were still making sandbags just to be on the safe side, cooking for the hotel guests for the day after the storm. Basically I was running up and down the whole day. We had an extremely good briefing by the manager of the hotel ( I was at this location because my boyfriend is a chef here, and I would return to the hospital after the storm to relieve my staying in colleagues), and by that time the nerves really started to get to me. Only then I also realized that there was an option that people actually might get hurt around me, so I decided to set up an emergency room in the hotel. I choose the room just across from mine for easy access. So AED in, emergency kit in, I even brought some antique surgical instruments (hey you never know), clean water, ducttape (McGyver saved the world with this wright?), basically everything was there ready to use.
We took a last wine to fall asleep, trying to catch as many hours as possible before the storm would reach. Of course sleep wouldn't come, but eventually I drifted off, also to wake up a couple of times. Around 3 AM I woke up in a way that ended my sleeping session, and the wind at that time was already seriously picking up. In the briefing earlier on we had learned that when the wind would get too bad, we would be expected to come to the main hallway, so by 3.30 we did. By that time the wind was howling through the building, and the sliding doors of every hotel room were shivering. Once reaching the hallway, almost all the hotel guests and staff were already there, and people were just waiting in silence. At this moment my cellphone reception was still okay, and I sent a message to my family in Europe it had started. Irma at this moment, had started literally knocking on the walls outside. You know the knocking, like your parents expect you to come inside immediately.
With a intense crashing sound I heard the first sliding door shattering, and this was exactly the room I had made as emergency treatment room. Water instantly started coming in under the door into the hallway we were sitting in, and I could only think of the emergency stuff that was unreachable now. If i would open the hotel room door, wind would come into the building at once and shatter everything, so this room and supplies I would have to consider as a goner. Naturally this was very discouraging to me, because the forecast told us we still had 1,5 hour to go before the eye of the hurricane would even reach us, and we would be halfway in this misery. My boyfriend and all management scattered throughout the building to check if everybody was out of their rooms, and yes they found people in the rooms locked into the bathroom. Ceilings had already caved in, in some of the bathrooms. At this point I could here about every 10 seconds a sliding door popping, and you could feel the pressure coming out of the rooms. The pressure on my ears reminded me of a very rapidly descending aircraft feeling, and also my head started to pound.A big screeching sound came from upstairs, and it sounded like a good idea to get everyone from the second floor to the first floor. My boyfriend ran further up, and he said 'Im going to check how the fourth floor is'. Okay, you have to realize that before this hurricane I had said to him to not be a f*cking hero, but what he was doing now was gathering crucial information on about how the structure was doing. He came back and whispered in my ear that the roof was gone over the whole fourth floor, and that is when I really started to get scared. But at this point you can not do much, but keeping your 67 people together.
The behavior of the people around me was very interesting. Some people were silent, some people were praying, and some people were laughing like the were in a bar. One girl even found it more important to put her bag on a chair, instead of a person ( it's a Caribbean culture thing). But all of this is happening in one hallway, where you can not sit in front of a door, because these can fly out of be punctured from the outside. You catch my drift on how close we were all sitting together. I was just sitting on my little pillow on the ground, just waiting what was going to happen now, and apparently I'm not really a talkative person in these kind of situations. By this time water is also coming through the ceiling, and I literally felt the building shaking as if we were going through an earthquake. I saw the staff checking upstairs and downstairs and coming back wet from this. My conclusion of this was that we had a lot of open spaces, which is a problem because the wind can go through the building and build up pressure.
And all of a sudden, silence! The eye of hurricane Irma had reached us. Time to regroup! The eye of hurricanes have no wind in them, and in this case it was predicted it would last about an hour. Quickly a last text to the family that the eye had reached us, but that we were still okay. Because of the situation with the roof, we were all directed to go down to the basement. We had to pass through the lobby and this was surreal with glass, cables and water everywhere. A lot of water, a whole whole lot of water.
This hotel is at the seaside, and after the eye had passed us, the wind was predicted to turn south and blow over sea straight towards us. This together with a storm surge of more than 15 feet was not really a nice predicament. The walk down felt endless for me, and I didn't feel safe at all with the idea of rising seas. My boyfriend saw on the roof that the generator was mashed up on the roof, and because of this the pumps would not work properly, that should pump the water out of the basement. So everybody was directed back up again to the first floor, and we got a sandwich there. I was happy to be back on the first floor again, I didn't like the basement situation one bit! Doors were being extra secured, so they wouldn't be sucked out, nor pressed in into the hallway. The sandwich never reached my belly, I just couldn't get it in anymore. The general vibe was still very different on everybody, but people kept asking me if I was okay, so I guess I didn't look very fine. I was worried about the second part that was about to reach us, in the knowledge of that this part would be worse.
We felt and heard the wind picking up again, and began to brace ourselves. You know the eyewall will hit you directly again, so immediately you are back into the most terrible winds. Again glass breaking, more collapsing ceilings and by them also darkness. Luckily everybody has a cellphone with a flashlight nowadays. Communication went down, no more texts to home. I heard so many disturbing sounds on the building and after about 15 minutes again we went down to the basement, even though the pumps were still off. But this time it felt right to leave the first floor, it didn't feel safe anymore. Through the kitchen we went down, and I was trying the absorb the environment for potential exit routes if stuff would collapse. 67 people in the basement in the dark, with a storm which is knocking on our door. I have to say, these 67 people were perfect, no panic, no fuss, everybody did what they were told, and they just sat and waited.
Somebody came to get me to take care of a girl with asthma without a puffer. This was perfect distraction for, because taking care of people in my normal routing. But still my gaze kept drifting off to the tsunami door, to check if there wasn't any water coming in. After a while the girl fell asleep calmly, and I went for a quick scan of all these people to see I anybody would need assistance, should we need to evacuate quickly for the basement. After that I took my little pillow again, and sat against the wall, until the storm would pass. All this time I saw my boyfriend running around, taking care of stuff and trying to reduce the damages. He is such a strong human being, a true hero.
Slowly we heard the wind calming down, and after this we waited for about 15 minutes before we went back up. Through a lobby filled with water, and a broken shutter we stepped outside. With teary eyes we saw how everything that was normal in our life had changed and was destroyed...
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