Tweet
We set the alarm so that we have plenty of time to be ready to head for the airport. I'm in the shower and the phone rings. It's Sienna. The first thing she says when Don answers is "You're hunkered down, right? They closed the airport at 10:00 pm last night!" O----kay. Now what?
We look out to see a cloudy day but no wind or rain to speak of. Later in the day the rain will start. While we are discussing things, Sean comes to the room to tell us that they were eating breakfast and had been told that if anyone wanted any meals later to order now because they would be closing the restaurant at 12:00. I go down to the restaurant and order breakfast to take to the room and also order 2 jerk chicken meals for later. Normally we just get 1/4 chicken but I order 2 half chicken dinners thinking that I like cold chicken and since we had refrigerators in our rooms it would keep for supper that night.
Since we know that Ivan is coming and we aren't going anywhere, the day is spent just waiting for things to happen! By late morning it begins to rain and seems to rain the rest of the day. It's not to bad to be out in for short little runs from room to room but we don't venture out anywhere besides the resort.
Donovan stops by to bring us a bag of fruit to have to eat during the storm. It has a pinapple, bananas, oranges, watermelon and papaya. We split the bananas and oranges with Sean and Lyndsey. Don went to the kitchen to ask for a knife to split the watermelon the pinapple and the chef offers to cut them up for us. We split this up with the kids, too. Then we decide we should ask someone how to tackle the papaya (to be honest, we weren't even sure at this point what it was!). We take them to the kitchen and even though he is very busy, the chef slices the papaya onto a plate for us! Talk about service.
We spent alot of time watching the Jamaican TV station and listening & watching as they track Ivan. By late afternoon the wind begins to pick up. Our power goes off but the hotel has a generator and we only were without power for about 20 mins. to 1/2 hour. At this point there is no TV and no radio. Since it is getting dark (earlier than normal because of the storm)and the wind and rain are beginning to get serious we all go into our rooms and as Sienna put it "hunker down."
Don and I each brought 2 books along so we start to read. We piece on the chicken dinners that were brought earlier in the day. The hotel also delivers a bag with banana bread, muffins, guava jelly, crackers, cheese and juice boxes. They tell is this is for breakfast tomorrow.
We decide to go on to bed earlier than usual since there wasn't much else to do. As we are gettin ready for bed our water begins to slow to a trickle. If Friday night got very bad, we missed it. We are heavy sleepers and didn'nt hear a thing.
Saturday, Sept. 11
When we get up the next morning we see some of the other guests gathering water from the down spouts to use to flush their toilets. Don pulls the plastic liner out of our wastebasket and uses it to bring water in to flush. We get water back later. The hotel also stores water in tanks of top of the buildings for just such circumstances. They have switched things over and we now have running water again.
We spend the day, reading, looking out the windows, reading, looking out the windows. Sean and a couple of other crazy guests take advantage of a couple of lulls in the storm and venture out and make a couple of short video clips pretending the storm is much worse than it really is! Had I known that my son was out playing in the storm I would have wrung his neck but all was well and it helped them pass the time.
Later in the afternoon the sidewalk in front of our rooms begins to fill with water. (The walk runs down hill from the road. There is a drain about halfway to the beach. Don ventures out at least 3 times to clear the drain. There was a tree with huge leaves nearby and when they were washed to the drain they plugged it real fast.) The drain finally has taken as much as it can and the rain water begins to rise more. As the water rises some of the patios for the rooms just past Sean and Lyndsey's begin to fill. Not too much longer the water begins to come in under the doors. The guests in those rooms nearer to the drain are moved to other rooms. (We were all in the CocoInn part. They move them to the CocoLapalm rooms.) They don't move anyone from Sean's room up the hill.....yet. About 5:00 pm Sean calls us to tell us the water is now coming up on his patio. He's started to think that the water might come into his room while they are sleeping and they wouldn't know it till they step in it in the morning. That wouldn't be so bad except that the rooms have electricity thanks to the generator and there are cords lying on the floor! He asks us to call and ask the staff about that possibility. We also begin to lose water pressure till it just trickles down to nothing. We had been given room #'s of staff that remained to use if needed anything. I try reaching them and get no answers. After trying on and off to reach someone for about a half hour we have a knock on the door. They are checking on everyone. I tell them Sean is concerned and they go to check it out. They tell them that we also have no water again and it is decided they will move us to another building also.
So just after dark, we are out walking in about 6-8 inches of water carrying our luggage and headed to a different room. We also are put in the CocoLaPalm rooms. Shortly after getting settled in I finish reading the 2nd of the books that I brought along. (I usually bring one book to read while waiting at the airports or on the plane and rarely get very far into that book since I am a people watcher. For some reason I had decided to pack 2 books for each of us. Thank-goodness!) So...I break into the deck of cards I had gotten to bring home to our younger son. Don is still reading so I play solataire, 2 different versions, over and over and over, and over.....you get the idea.
Not much exciting is happening so we call it a night, to the sound of gusty winds and falling rain. The same thing we had been hearing ALL day long. We do get to sleep fairly easily.
We look out to see a cloudy day but no wind or rain to speak of. Later in the day the rain will start. While we are discussing things, Sean comes to the room to tell us that they were eating breakfast and had been told that if anyone wanted any meals later to order now because they would be closing the restaurant at 12:00. I go down to the restaurant and order breakfast to take to the room and also order 2 jerk chicken meals for later. Normally we just get 1/4 chicken but I order 2 half chicken dinners thinking that I like cold chicken and since we had refrigerators in our rooms it would keep for supper that night.
Since we know that Ivan is coming and we aren't going anywhere, the day is spent just waiting for things to happen! By late morning it begins to rain and seems to rain the rest of the day. It's not to bad to be out in for short little runs from room to room but we don't venture out anywhere besides the resort.
Donovan stops by to bring us a bag of fruit to have to eat during the storm. It has a pinapple, bananas, oranges, watermelon and papaya. We split the bananas and oranges with Sean and Lyndsey. Don went to the kitchen to ask for a knife to split the watermelon the pinapple and the chef offers to cut them up for us. We split this up with the kids, too. Then we decide we should ask someone how to tackle the papaya (to be honest, we weren't even sure at this point what it was!). We take them to the kitchen and even though he is very busy, the chef slices the papaya onto a plate for us! Talk about service.
We spent alot of time watching the Jamaican TV station and listening & watching as they track Ivan. By late afternoon the wind begins to pick up. Our power goes off but the hotel has a generator and we only were without power for about 20 mins. to 1/2 hour. At this point there is no TV and no radio. Since it is getting dark (earlier than normal because of the storm)and the wind and rain are beginning to get serious we all go into our rooms and as Sienna put it "hunker down."
Don and I each brought 2 books along so we start to read. We piece on the chicken dinners that were brought earlier in the day. The hotel also delivers a bag with banana bread, muffins, guava jelly, crackers, cheese and juice boxes. They tell is this is for breakfast tomorrow.
We decide to go on to bed earlier than usual since there wasn't much else to do. As we are gettin ready for bed our water begins to slow to a trickle. If Friday night got very bad, we missed it. We are heavy sleepers and didn'nt hear a thing.
Saturday, Sept. 11
When we get up the next morning we see some of the other guests gathering water from the down spouts to use to flush their toilets. Don pulls the plastic liner out of our wastebasket and uses it to bring water in to flush. We get water back later. The hotel also stores water in tanks of top of the buildings for just such circumstances. They have switched things over and we now have running water again.
We spend the day, reading, looking out the windows, reading, looking out the windows. Sean and a couple of other crazy guests take advantage of a couple of lulls in the storm and venture out and make a couple of short video clips pretending the storm is much worse than it really is! Had I known that my son was out playing in the storm I would have wrung his neck but all was well and it helped them pass the time.
Later in the afternoon the sidewalk in front of our rooms begins to fill with water. (The walk runs down hill from the road. There is a drain about halfway to the beach. Don ventures out at least 3 times to clear the drain. There was a tree with huge leaves nearby and when they were washed to the drain they plugged it real fast.) The drain finally has taken as much as it can and the rain water begins to rise more. As the water rises some of the patios for the rooms just past Sean and Lyndsey's begin to fill. Not too much longer the water begins to come in under the doors. The guests in those rooms nearer to the drain are moved to other rooms. (We were all in the CocoInn part. They move them to the CocoLapalm rooms.) They don't move anyone from Sean's room up the hill.....yet. About 5:00 pm Sean calls us to tell us the water is now coming up on his patio. He's started to think that the water might come into his room while they are sleeping and they wouldn't know it till they step in it in the morning. That wouldn't be so bad except that the rooms have electricity thanks to the generator and there are cords lying on the floor! He asks us to call and ask the staff about that possibility. We also begin to lose water pressure till it just trickles down to nothing. We had been given room #'s of staff that remained to use if needed anything. I try reaching them and get no answers. After trying on and off to reach someone for about a half hour we have a knock on the door. They are checking on everyone. I tell them Sean is concerned and they go to check it out. They tell them that we also have no water again and it is decided they will move us to another building also.
So just after dark, we are out walking in about 6-8 inches of water carrying our luggage and headed to a different room. We also are put in the CocoLaPalm rooms. Shortly after getting settled in I finish reading the 2nd of the books that I brought along. (I usually bring one book to read while waiting at the airports or on the plane and rarely get very far into that book since I am a people watcher. For some reason I had decided to pack 2 books for each of us. Thank-goodness!) So...I break into the deck of cards I had gotten to bring home to our younger son. Don is still reading so I play solataire, 2 different versions, over and over and over, and over.....you get the idea.
Not much exciting is happening so we call it a night, to the sound of gusty winds and falling rain. The same thing we had been hearing ALL day long. We do get to sleep fairly easily.
Peace 
Comment