The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1910-02-02
Where 1t Really Rains
Sometimes.
SPECIMENS OF THE WEATHER
Which Sounds a Little Amor
NAL to Kentucky People
Scenes In Jamaica.

storm in Jamaica. "Do you want to
know what the experience is likeS
"a hurricane will leap out of clear
sky, swoop down on city, blow every
thing in its path fiat and pass on.
Then follows the tail of the hurricane,
a steady breeze blowing in the same
direction, but at much lower veloc-
ity. This is likely to continue for
many hours, sometimes for many days
and is always accompanied by a tor
rental downpour of rain.
81 was in Kingston, Jamaica, at the
time of the hurricane of 1908. At 3
o'clock in the afternoon was in my
office on the top floor of a rickety
wooden building. As suddenly as a
clap of thunder the room went dark.
81 had a pretty good idea of what
was about to happen, and going to the
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 were
still golden with light.
"In less than a quarter of an hour
the wind reached us. The first struc-
ture that went was a wooden watch
tower about 200 feet high, that was
used in the old days to locate ships
approaching the harbor. 1t had
weathered all previous hurricanes, but
this time it went down like a house
of cards. Spars of lumber from that
tower we're carried as far as 20 blocks
before they came to the ground.
"Then the spire of a church went,
the roofs of a good many residences
were torn off and some fine palm trees
in the public gardens snapped off
about half way from the ground.
Buildings in Kingston, however, are
calculated to stand a pretty severe
blow. They are built only a few
stories high and the roofs present a
broad and comparatively fiat surface
to the wild. Considering the velocity
at which that hurricane was travelling
the damage was not great; even my
crazy Office building withstood it; but
the tail of the thing followed, with a
heavier rain than | have ever seen be-
fore or since. To say that it came
down in bucketfulls would be mild
1t was as if the clerk of the weather
had taken the plug out Of some huge
vat suspended above our heads and
allowed the water to plump straight
down on us.
"In three hours the macadam on
the streets had been washed into the
harbor. The street outside my win
dow was a rushing river as much as
four feet deep in places. | saw cart
try to cross it, but with the horses
legs being washed away from under
it, it was an impossible task, and the
driver turned back. Big casks and
packing cases we're dancing on the
surface like corks.
GAS you can imagine, l didsnOt get
home to supper that evening. 1t was
8 o'clock before the rain stopped and
the water in the streets had drained
into the harbor. Even then traffic
had not begun to reorganize itself.
"The trolley car tracks had been
washed out and no cars we're running.
Cabs, however, were doing a roaring
business, and eventually l got a cab
man to drive me home for three times
his customary charge.
"The damage to property in Kings
ton mounted up to hundreds Of thous-
ands of dollars, but the real destruc-
ton was wrought in the country dis
tricts. Floods wiped out many ne
gro village and sent the fimsy house
floating down the rivers. The rail
roads we're tied up for nearly a week.
Every banana tree in the path of the
hurricane was uprooted. Oh, yes, a
West Indian hurricane can do a lot
of damage when it gets busy.
"Loss of life, did you say2 Of
course, there was. Nearly 200 peo-