Parottee residents weigh evacuation plans as hurricane season opens

PAROTTEE, St Elizabeth — At 81, Beautina Roach has no interest in gambling with another hurricane season after what Hurricane Melissa did to her family and neighbours seven months ago.

Roach recalled that her grandson, who was four at the time, had to be placed inside a refrigerator to shelter him from the danger as the storm battered the coastal community. Speaking last Friday while indicating the child, now five, she said floodwater rose as high as the windows and swept through the house, taking belongings with it.

She said the family could not safely remain in the home once the sea pushed inland. According to Roach, after the water came over the shore, fish were left scattered about the area.

Not far from Roach’s home, Dahlia Graham also described the lasting damage left by the Category Five system, which made landfall last October. Graham said she, her spouse and their five children, ages 10, eight, seven, six and five, left Parottee two days before the hurricane arrived and took shelter at Newell High School.

When she returned, Graham said, the home and contents had been devastated. She said the only thing she managed to save was her pig, while the family lost furniture, clothing, the house and other belongings.

Graham said the household has had to begin again. Although they now have a structure, much of what was destroyed inside has not yet been replaced, and electricity was only recently restored.

While she hopes Parottee will not face another disaster like Melissa this year, Graham said the experience has left her cautious. If conditions worsen during any future storm, she said, the family will leave rather than expose the children to danger.

Parottee fisherman Orville “Ruddy” Williams has reached a similar conclusion. He said he does not plan to remain on the beach if another hurricane threatens the seaside settlement.

Williams said that if another storm approaches, he will head for higher ground or a hill, adding that had Melissa been more deadly, people along the beachfront might not have survived. He said his focus this season is finding the safest place to ride out any threat.

Another resident, Puncie Bennett Munroe, has taken a different position. She said she intends to stay in Parottee and wants to rebuild her house.

Munroe said her home had stood for many years without being destroyed. She noted that Hurricane Beryl caused no damage to it, but Melissa wrecked it and all her goats drowned.

She said leaving Parottee is not an option because she has nowhere else to go. The land, she said, was left to her by her father, and she pays taxes on it. What she wants now, Munroe said, is a house on the same property.