Windsor Road residents rally together to improve community

Along the narrow, mud-caked lanes of Windsor Road, the sound of hammers and power saws now fills the air where Hurricane Melissa left silence and ruin.

Men climb atop bare rafters to nail down scraps of zinc, women hang clothes across roadside fences to dry, and neighbours share what little they have to begin again.

Residents of the small St Ann community have been forced to depend on each other after most homes either lost their roofs or were completely flattened during the storm.

Carmen Hudson, a longtime resident, said she remains shaken by the experience.

“Mi only give thanks seh I’m here to tell the tale and nothing worse never happen,” she told Barbados TODAY on Sunday.

Hudson, who was seen sitting in front of a shop she operates, tended to her merchandise – a few pieces of rotting yams and corns that looked like they had seen better days – as she admitted the storm’s impact had worsened an already desperate situation.

“I can’t get to buy and sell nothing… hungry going to kill we. We can’t buy food,” she said.

Hudson said the hurricane was worse than Gilbert, the 1988 storm that many Jamaicans still remember.

“This worse than Gilbert and this come fi kill and sweep,” she said. “Just have to give thanks mi alive and can talk.”

Now, she dries her remaining clothes along a fence by the road. Her partner, Delray McDonald, echoed the hardship facing the entire district.

“Everybody house blow down and everybody feel the pinch,” he said. “Right now mi wouldn’t want back no zinc house. When mi look and see what it go on with, mi wouldn’t want back zinc… everybody go through a hard time.”

McDonald now sleeps in a small shop nearby but remains grateful to be alive.

“Mi still give thanks because it could’ve been worse,” he said.

The residents literally lined up to share how they had been affected by the Category 5 system, widely referred to as the most devastating hurricane to reach the country’s shores in recent times.

“Melissa gone with all a mi zinc,” Donald Cato said. “Man nearly kill mi because I had to be picking up two sheet fi see if mi can sleep. Him a seh it’s his zinc…; mi nuh know which one is mine.”

Despite the tension, Cato said residents have rallied together to clear debris and start rebuilding.

“Most of the work you see done, we do it, the people from the community,” he said, pointing to piles of debris, adding that while the area is far from what it used to be, the collaborative effort cannot go unnoticed.

Further down the road, Michael Levert and his partner Kareen Clarke pointed to a weak attempt to cover a gaping hole where floodwaters broke through the side of their plywood house. The couple said they have had to patch what they can to keep out the rain and give their children somewhere to sleep, but fear that it will not hold up against another bout of rain.

Marcia Jones, another resident, said she and her grandchildren rode out the storm inside their home as trees crashed around them.

“I heard when the tree fell on the house,” she recalled. “All the while I was praying for the storm to be over… I’m glad we didn’t lose any life, so we just got up and start repairing.”

Jones said outside help has been scarce. “We never have anyone or anywhere to go to, so we just stay and repair,” she added.

As chainsaws buzz and hammers ring across Windsor Road, neighbours continue to lean on each other, repairing what they can and giving thanks that, amid all that was lost, life itself was spared.

They echoed the need for help, especially in the form of building materials like zinc and plywood.

(SM)