As most people know, Hurricane Dean is in the Caribbean and heading for Jamaica. The reaction on the news is very different than in the states, but the reaction of the people is similar. The news has a 10 second blurb on it saying that it is coming and may be here Sunday. No windspeed forcasts,no warnings to prepare, just a note that by the way, your weekend may be interrupted by a hurricane. I am guessing some places have a middle ground between the doomsday US news on natural disasters and the Jamaican news cast. On the other hand the people have the same attitude that I saw in New Orleans (granted this was pre-Katrina). "Hurricanes that start in that part of the Atlantic never hit us, they always turn at the last minute." No one seems really worried and I doubt anyone will do anything to prepare until the last minute when they realize that it won't turn. Since nothing is showing a projected track, I am guessing most people don't know that it will probably go right over the country or give it a glancing blow north or south. Chances are slim it will shift and pass us by.
We were scheduled to go to Kingston on Monday for our last week of training and swearing in as volunteers. Now we are leaving on Saturday morning and will spend the weekend hanging out in a hotel with the rest of the trainees. I will let you all know how things go. An interesting aspect of our jobs is that if the hurricane does a lot of damage we may be pulled away and do recovery work.
The past week of training has been good. It was by far the most productive and I am looking forward to the end of the elections (August 27) and training so I can get started on my projects.
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3 comments:
TXans are concerned about you. Please take the weather seriously.
Take it from an experienced hurrican dodger, be careful and stay inside. My thoughts and prayers are with you guys. Be safe!
I am having some trouble with email and my blogger account, but I wanted to say that we are fine post-Dean. Westmoreland made it through with truly minimal damage, though other areas of Jamaica were not as lucky. As Dean drew closer, there were certainly preparations being made across the island. We rode out the storm at the Embassy and made it back to our sites with a delay of only one day. We will post more of that adventure later.
-Carrie
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