He stood for what seemed like hours, but may have just been a few minutes, tightly holding the glass doors to his home together as the wind roared outside. But when the glass began to crack, he scampered into the bedroom and did the same with the bedroom door to protect his wife and young daughters.
As he and his wife fought with the wind for the bedroom door, their daughters, amazingly, slept through it all. But Andre Adams knew it was all over when he peeped outside and saw that the roof had gone and with it almost every piece of furniture in their home.
That is the frightening recollection Adams, a Guyanese, has of Hurricane Irma which wreaked havoc in Tortola, British Virgin Islands on September 6, but he is still grateful that his life and the lives of his family members were spared. The family, like so many throughout the Caribbean islands that were devastated by hurricanes Irma and Maria, is now in the process of rebuilding having lost all worldly possessions but a resilient Adams said it is a process that can be accomplished, pointing out that the family is safe even though temporarily separated.
