Amador ledger., 1910-01-21
A BLOW IN JAMAICA
Things That Happen When a piJ
Stern Breaks .oose There.
A WEST INDIAN RURaiC4N :.

Path - Then Games a Torrentisl
Downpour That Ends In q Flood.
"Ilave you ever bpen through West
Indian hurricanp?" said man who
has lived in the tropics on and OF for
uunber of years DO you want to
know what tho experience Is like?
"A hurricane will leap out Of clear
sky, swoop down ON city, blow ey-
erything in its path fiat and pass on
Then follows the tail Of the hurricane.
a steady breeze blowing in the same
direction, but at a much lower veloci-
ty This is likely to continue for
many hours, sometimes for many days.
and is always accompanied by Il tor
rental downpour of raiA
II was in Kingston. jamaica. ut the
time of the hurricane of 1903. AT 3
o'clock in the afternoon | was in my
Office on the top floor of Il rickety
wooden building. AS suddenly as IL
clap of thunder the room went dark.
Il had pretty good idea of what
window, looked out across the roofs.
A black cloud had whirled up out OF
the southwest. obscuring the sun, but
the mountains back of the city We're
still golden with light.
I'm less than Il quarter of an hour
the wind reached us. The first struc-
ture that went was Il wooden watch
tower about 200 feet high that had
been used in the old days to locate
ships approaching the harbor. 1t had
weathered all previous hurricanes. but
this time it went down like house of
cards Spars of lumber from that
tower were carried as far as twenty
blocks before they came to the ground.
Then the spire of the church went,
the roofs of Il good many residences
were torn off. and some fine palm trees
in the public gardens snapped off about
halfway from the ground. Buildings i'll
Kingston. however. are calculated to
stand pretty severe blow. They are
built only few stories high. and the
roofs present Il broad and compare
lively fat surface TO the wind ConSid-
ering the velocity at which that burri.
cane was travelling. the damage was
not great. Even my crazy office build
irg withstood 1t. But the tail of the
thing followed. with 4 heavier rain
than | have ever seen before or since
70 say that it came down in bucket
fuls would be mild. 1t WAS as if the
clerk OF the weather had taken the
plug oar of some huge vat suspended
above our heads and allowed the wa
ter to plump straight down Oh us.
In three hours the macadam on the
streets had been washed into the har-
boz The street outside my window
was rushing river as much as four
feet deep il places | saw Il cart try
to cross it. but with the water above
the axle of the wheel ana the horses
legs being washed away from under it
it was an impossible task, and the
driver turned back Big casks and
packing cases were dancing OH the sur
face like cOrlls.
LAS you can imagine | did not get
home to supper that evening. II was s
O'clock before the rain stopped and the
water in the streets had drained into
the h&rbor.. Even then traffic had not
begun to reorganize itself.
THE trolley car tracks had been
washed out. and no ears We're run
ming Cabs. however, were doing a
roaring business, and eventually got
a cabman to drive me home for three
times his customary charge.
The damage to property in King
stou mounted up to hundreds Of thou
sands of dollars. but the real destruc
ton was wrought in the country dis
tricts. Floods wiped out many 4 nCgrC
village and sent the AimSy houses
floating down the rivers. The railroads
were tied up for nearly week. Every
banana tree in the path of the hurri
cane was uprooted. Oh, yes. West
Indian hurricane can do lot of DAM
age when ii gets busy.
Loss of life, did you say? OF course
there was. Nearly 2G0 people were
killed throughout the island on that oc
casi0n. but we grow accustomed to
that in the West Indies. We expect a
hurricane every once in awhile, and
we know that it will take its toll of
human life when ii comes II you had
been telling the story you would prob
ably have mentioned that first of All,
but sudden death is SO common below
the tropir of Cancer that we get cal
l0us. | suppose, New York sun
Albion and Columbia.
"AlbiOn. the Gem of the Ocean," was