Covered by the Sea: Surviving a Hurricane – Part 15
During the night, Clark and Ellenden had been joined in their tamanu by Lino and Frisbie, who had passed Elaine and Jackie up to them. Ellenden took Jackie and Pratt took Elaine, and the men tied the children onto themselves. Ellenden and Pratt were wearing just cotton shirts, now sodden, and they had been shivering uncontrollably throughout the night. Each of the children was wrapped in a sheet from Frisbie’s bed, and the sheets, along with the children who were tied onto them, actually helped the adults to keep warm. The body heat generated by the men also warmed the children.
Clark says, “The wind was bringing cutting rain when we went into the trees. One could not look it in the face directly without a hand over the eyes, it hurt so. Frisbie appeared on the ground about 6:30 in between seas – every sea at this time did not break over the island but about one in three did. He beckoned for me to come down and I did so. By shouting I found out from him that the chaps up the other trees were just as bad off as up our tree, all feeling the exposure. He and I decided to make a dash for camp to collect blankets and food and clothing. We made a dash for it and were caught halfway by a wave. We managed to shelter behind a tree while it swirled around us. We arrived at camp to find all the buildings in partial collapse and debris piled all around them.”
Clark’s tent, amazingly, was still standing, although its roof had collapsed and water covered everything inside. Clark says, “Frisbie had on only a collarless shirt and long trousers so gave him my coat. I grabbed a couple of blankets and took some [cans of] biscuits and bottles of Hennessy brandy and a bottle of rum back toward my tree. We got a clear run back with no waves to stop us.”
Frisbie, taking some biscuits, a bottle of rum and a couple of blankets, went to find the other children. Clark says “I decided to make another trip to camp to find more blankets as the barometer was still falling, so I expected worse to come. Got back clear of waves and went into [the] store tent. The canvas of this was ripped right off, but most of the gear was still in place. [The] wall of [the] end of kai house had gone by this time and the roof was down. [I] was in the store tent when several big waves came through.”
Clark managed to be kept from being swept away. He says that tins of meat, batteries and their supplies of kerosene and benzene (in drums) had all been scattered or swept away. He continues, “I managed to get out two more blankets and made off with those, but I was caught on the way back by two big waves. I saved myself by tying on to a coconut tree by the rope that I had around my waist. Wind came much stronger now, and three times on the way back I could not stand against the gusts, and got down behind debris. The continuous roar of the wind drowned all sound. I did not see any sign of Frisbie this time, but he must have passed me as he was not at the tree when I got back. Soon after returning to the tree the seas became much heavier and the wind stronger. Several of the seas were so high that they swept over us even though we were tied into the trees. After a wave passed, everyone would be sputtering and coughing. The children would sometimes be under water, emerging as the wave passed. If the waves got any higher we would be in a bad way, because most of us couldn’t go much higher in the trees we were in.”
Clark, Nahora and Frisbie were taking great chances running between waves. If they had been caught while on the ground, they could have been swept away. The waves were so powerful as they came crashing over the island that much of the debris, even trees, were carried into the lagoon. If the men were swept away, the great waves powering into the lagoon or the ferocious tide rips likely would have drowned them or carried them out to sea.
Being swept away, however, was not the only danger. Each time a wave hit, it carried downed trees, which then crashed into each other. Thousand-pound palm sections blown against each other like pick-up-sticks crashing into one another might have pulverized anyone caught between them. At the least a person would suffer broken bones; at worst it might cost someone his life.
Powell and little Nga were still tied onto a branch of their tree when Nahora untied himself from his limb above Powell. Powell describes what happened, “Nahora went down. He had an idea to get an ax and a saw if he could find ‘em to cut the tops out of our tree. He took his rope with him and got down from the tree and he disappeared into the night, and a bit later he came back with a big ax and a crosscut saw(1). He climbed up to the tree where I was, and [I] could see what he had in mind was to cut the tree off just over our heads.”
“Well, you know, it’s a strange thing I’m talking to you about a hurricane, I don’t know why, because very often I probably never’d talk to anyone about it, because people, if you haven’t experienced this sort of thing, people will say, ‘Oh you’re exaggerating. You’re telling nonsense. You’re just exaggerating the story.’ Well, two things stuck clearly in my mind over the years, afterwards, that I could hardly believe. The first thing was when Nahora and I thought we’d saw these branches off. I reached over and grabbed the saw and he took the handle. The crosscut saw he had, I s’pose, was about four-foot-six long. Now, he had the handle and put his hand in the middle of the blade and I put my hands between his hands and on the end of the blade, and we tried to turn the saw down so we could saw through this tree that was above our heads, but we couldn’t twist the saw into a position to cut. We couldn’t twist it against the wind, and when we tried to cut, when it was a little bit broadside to the wind, the wind buckled the saw so much that instead of being a narrow saw-cut it was about two inches wide where it’d buckle between our hands – even with all the strength we’d got to try and hold it straight. Well we scraped a bit of the bark off, but it was pretty obvious there was no way we were gonna use this saw in that wind to cut into the tree. Then I sort of nodded to Nahora – I s’spose, I don’t know how we communicated like that – we realized it couldn’t be done. And I let go of my end of the saw and he let go of his and the saw flew up into the night and vanished. It didn’t fall down. It just disappeared.”
“Well, he’d also brought this ax with him, and he picked the ax up, and there was no hope in hell of him swinging the ax in the normal way against the wind and striking this tree. He picked it up short and held it as short as he could and he hit this tree, this tamanu limb above our heads – hit it once with the ax. The amazing thing was that he only hit it once, he didn’t really cut into it, and the tree broke clean off right where he’d hit it eighteen inches above our heads, and the whole top of the tree went up into the wind and disappeared out of sight. We didn’t even see it go. It didn’t fall down. The wind picked it up and instead of this heavy thing falling down on us and crushing us underneath, it broke off and flew off into the wind and vanished into the night.”
(1) Nahora and Clark apparently had the same idea at about the same time, to cut or chop the tops out of their trees before they were blown over. However, Clark never mentions whether he and Ellenden had actually succeeded, or even made an attempt, given the howling winds.