Hurricane Flora

Interrupting my chronological recital of my Navy career, I’m going to jump ahead a few years as this is the correct time of the year for this tale.  It so happened that I was ordered to travel to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 1963.  I left my wife and our only child in Northern New York when I left the area on July 19^th, 1963.  I drove to Norfolk, Virginia for further transfer to Gitmo.

I arrived in Gitmo August 2, 1963 for a one year tour of duty.  My first act upon arrival was to apply for an extension of that one year for a second year which allowed my family to accompany me.  Second order of business was to apply for Base Housing which put me on a waiting list for a two-bedroom home.  Now it was time to settle down and wait.

About a month later, September 6^th, I completed eight years in the Navy and was an E-6 Enlisted First Class Petty Officer (AMS1).  I had taken a Navy-wide exam the previous February, and was selected as an E-7 Chief Petty Officer effective as of November 16^th, which was about two months in my future.

On September 26^th a tropical depression formed off the west coast of Africa, and by September 29^th it had evolved into Hurricane Flora located some 560 miles east of Trinidad.  It passed directly over the island of Tobago with winds of 125 MPH.  It made landfall on the island of Haiti on October 3rd with winds of 145 MPH with gusts up to 200 causing 3500 deaths.

Next in line was Cuba where it struck about 30 miles from Guantanamo Bay with slightly lesser wind speeds closer to 125 MPH.  Traveling northwestward past Gitmo it weakened over land.  As it approached the northern coast of Cuba on October 4^th a high pressure area pushed it back southward whereupon it struck our Base for a second time shortly after we had been advised of an all-clear form the first shot.  After traveling into the waters of the Caribbean, south of the island where it picked up some more steam, it returned for the third time on its way northeast on October 8^th.  For five soggy days we dealt with great amounts of rain and wind that seemed like they would never end.  Some areas of Cuba received up to 100” of rain, the highest amount of any event ever on record.  Totally it was the 6^th deadliest storm ever with between 7,200 and 8,000 deaths.

November 16^th I was initiated into the ranks of Chief Petty Officer.  Six days later President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  Possibly not as memorable as September 11, 2001, but it was truly an eventful six-week period.

One month later my wife and son arrived at Gitmo where we spent the next three years together, as well as our daughter born there the following February.