Creek saves Parottee residents from Melissa

When the sea rose to claim Parottee, St Elizabeth, during the passage of Hurricane Melissa, it was a creek that fought back.

As the hurricane battered the fishing village, a small waterway behind the community burst and split, forcing the flood to divide. For 30 minutes, while the sea raged outside, Khani Wright, his partner Sandra, and their 14-year-old daughter stood inside a plastic bucket balanced on a refrigerator, praying the water would stop climbing. When the current finally changed direction, the creek had saved them and much of Parottee. Now, days after the storm, Wright's home is nothing but sand.

"It rough, and when me say rough, it rough," he told THE STAR, still staring at the patch of ground where his living room once stood. "We deh pan di bed and see di zinc fly. Me seh, 'Sandra, you and me daughter affi leff now.' We nuh know weh we a run go, but we run."

He remembers the sound of the water before the split. It was a roar that filled the house like thunder.

"If the creek never burst, the whole a Parottee woulda gone under," Wright said. "A that save we."

His daughter, a student of Black River High School, has barely spoken since.

"She traumatised bad," he said. "Her uniform, her books, everything gone."

A couple houses down from them, another family was running the same race against the sea as the hurricane did its damage.

Fifty-nine-year-old Sheron Watson told the news team that she can still hear the sound of her house breaking apart.

"Me did inna di house when the sea start come over," she said, standing on the bare concrete slab that once held her kitchen. "Me grab one likkle bag, three panty and this pink dress, and run go next door."

That 'next door' was an unfinished two-storey structure without a roof or windows.

"We stay upstairs and pray," she said. "That's what save we."

Watson lived with two of her children and two grandchildren, including a 10-year-old who will spend her birthday this week without a home.

"Me never see when the house wash weh," Watson recalled. "When the place clear up, a just piece a floor leff. Last year during [Hurricane] Beryl, only the top a di house gone, but Melissa lick we wicked."

Parottee, usually a strip of colour and fishing boats, now lies buried under sand. Boats that had been dragged inland before the storm were hurled into yards; some ended up in front of homes, pinned between trees. The main road from Black River remains impassable, forcing motorists to detour through Junction, Williamsfield and Hilltop Road to reach the district.

"The sea tek back everything," Watson opined. "But it never tek we. Not this time."

When THE STAR visited Black River last Friday, Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Floyd Green, who is also Member of Parliament for St Elizabeth South Western, confirmed that Parottee was among the hardest-hit communities.

"We have not been able to get into Parottee as yet because the water level is high and it is difficult to traverse," Green said at the time. "We have to wait on the water to recede a little bit. If you know Parottee, there is a pond and the pond has come over completely, so it has made the road impassable. People are not marooned, but they're having difficulty getting out. The road has been cut, so those who traverse in and out, we tell them to be careful."

He reasoned that the fishing beach was likely devastated by the storm surge.

"The human side of this is painful. Hearing how people had to stand in buckets to survive shows how close we came to tragedy."

By sunset, the air in Parottee was thick with mosquitoes. Children stood outside barefoot, brushing them away as men searched through the sand for pieces of zinc and nails from what used to be their homes. Watson held the small bag she escaped with.

"We don't have nothing left," she said. "But we still have life, and that mean something."