Hurricanes by Jerome Gold

Hurricanes-by-Jerome-Gold

Description

Hurricanes: The Human Experience
of Hurricanes by Jerome Gold

ISBN 978-0930773250

Hurricanes is a collection of letters and essays about the human experience of hurricanes. Two of the writers, the teacher Donna Tiapula and the poet John Enright, wrote to friends during the Samoan hurricanes of 1990 and 1991. You will find excerpts below. Jerome Gold, novelist and anthropologist, provides a moving evocation of Samoa before the destruction and a later glimpse of the impact these storms made. Award-winning essayist Marilyn Stablein’s thoughts on Galveston’s experience of Hurricane Alicia offer a view of the relationship between the destruction outside ourselves and the fear of chaos within.

From Donna Tiapula’s letter:

“The sea is hard to describe. Usually, it is such a beautiful deep blue and now it is green and ugly . . . Two small homes have been destroyed, gone totally. The bay is filled with waves on the reef 20 to 30 feet tall. Not one or two waves, but 100’s an hour. . . . It is really blowing now. . . . Wind is fierce. We cannot see the bay, rain and wind obstruct the view. . . . I am so scared. My stomach aches. I am angry . . . destruction everywhere.”

From John Enright’s letters:

“A bad sign–a flight of frigate birds just arrived in the cove. They are open-ocean birds, moving ahead of the storm, looking for shelter. . . . The roofing irons above my dining room are peeled back and flapping. . . . . Two of my porch doors are gone. . . . A lot of big coconut and breadfruit trees are down in the yard. . . . . It seems the worst is not past. . . . This is it, full bore from the south. I just watched the porch and roof of Susan’s house disintegrate. . . . We’ll have another 10 hours of this at least. . . . What will the island look like? Will there be anything left?”

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