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By Kate Davidson and Andrew Houston Moncure, as told to Rheana Murray
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Andrew Houston Moncure’s family owns the Bluefields Bay Villas & Suites in Bluefields, Jamaica, which he and his wife, Kate Davison, run. This week the town of Bluefield was destroyed by Hurricane Melissa, the strongest hurricane on record to hit Jamaica. The storm has killed dozens across the Caribbean so far. Moncure, Davidson and their 20-month-old son rode out the hurricane at the resort, along with some of their staff. They spoke to Newsweek about their experience, and the devastation their community now faces.
We’ve always stayed here for the hurricanes. We figured it would be best if we were able to get out on the ground and assist in any way possible afterward. We wanted to be able to help and direct at the resort. On Saturday, we boarded up our house in Montego Bay and jumped in a car to come to Bluefields. Everybody knew it was going to be an incredibly strong storm, but at that point, there were conflicting reports about where it was going to go. I don’t think we ever imagined we would go through a Category 5, and such a direct hit.
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One of the villas at the resort has been here for 80-plus years, and it has a downstairs area that’s all concrete, and a concrete slab on top of it. We figured that would be the best place for us to stay with our 20-month-old son, Henry. We put whatever scraps of wood we could find on the windows we thought could take the most direct hit. And then we got ready for it. The winds started on Monday, but it wasn’t anything we hadn’t dealt with before. Then night came. We still had power, but the winds were picking up, and that’s when we started to get worried. Things weren’t changing. The reports weren’t good.
We got as much sleep as we could. We were both waking up every hour to see where the storm was going. We didn’t know exactly where it would hit. Tuesday morning came and things were getting a lot worse. The winds were really picking up. We had phone and internet and power until that morning. Then we lost all communication. The winds got so loud. It kept getting worse and worse. Every time we thought it would slow down a bit, it didn’t. And the pressure would just drop — you felt sick to your stomach, your ears were popping, you couldn’t breathe, you felt lightheaded, because the pressure was so low. And it kept intensifying.
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The room we were in was pretty safe, but we noticed at one point there was water coming in through the roof. The whole place was vibrating from the power of the storm. It sounded like a train was outside. We have team members at all the different villas and properties. We kept getting reports that the doors were gone, the windows were gone, the furniture was gone, the roofs were gone. And we just kept saying, “Stay safe, it doesn’t matter. Just get to the safest place possible, and we’ll deal with everything after the storm.”
At a certain point, we realized the windows were shaking. We decided to go into the interior bathroom, because it’s very sheltered. We brought all the pillows and blankets into the shower and we sat there for hours. Water was flooding in. There was a 4-foot-high river going along the side of the house. Had we opened the door, the water would have just flooded in. So the water is rushing in, and we’re in the shower. It felt like a freight train was going by. It was so loud. The whole house was shaking. We were in there for a few hours, and then things started to subside.
We were here last year for Hurricane Beryl, and it was fine. Afterward, we hired 50 or 60 guys from the community and everyone just came in and cleaned everything up. We had guests during that storm. By 2 p.m. you would never have known that a hurricane came through because everyone worked together and got everything back up and running. We thought it would be like that again. We thought it would be OK to stay. We will never do it again.
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Bluefields is a lush, jungle-like place, with mountains behind it — greenery for days. It’s so verdant. And all you can see now are trees with nothing on them, bare mountains, and the rubble of houses. Everything is decimated. There are no roofs on any of the houses. Windows are gone. People’s entire lives. It’s just piles of rubble everywhere. Having a baby here isn’t safe. Everywhere he wants to play is dangerous. We’re trying to get (Kate and Henry) airlifted out.
Everyone here has lost everything. You look up on the hill and people don’t know where they’re going to sleep tonight. If it rains, they’re sitting in the rain. They need help. And it’s not just food. They need tents, they need tarps, they need places they can sit with their families. I think people need to know that things are really bad down here. Communities are just decimated and trying to survive.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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