Apollyon said:
Just as a point of fact, Ivan is only the second hurricane to hit Grenada in the past 100 years (last before this was 1948).
I don't really know if ya'll are interested in what happened in grenada during Ivan, there has been a great deal of info out there, some true, some blown way out of proportion. Yes, there was looting, it happens , many people lost everything and deperate people do desperate things. As far as I saw, most of the looting was of stores, not homes. The SGU campus is on the southern most tip and away from the stores, so as far as I know no looting occured on or near campus.
Yes we were evacuated, but it wasn't based on a safety factor, we were'nt in danger for our lives, but that there was no other way off the island, commerical flights weren't coming in because the air control tower wasn't operational.
The campus is in realtively good condition, lots of roof and window damage, but evertyhing looks structurally sound- just going to take time to repair.
More importantly the island's infrastructure took a big hit and that may take months to repair- heard electricity is on in some parts of St. George's but water is still a problem. The island wsan't prepared for a hurricane(though I would think there are few places that are prepared for a Cat 4 hurricane, look at Pensacola) and that's because we are technically below the hurricane belt. The last one to hit was in 1955, Hurricane Janet- she hit Grenada then went on to cross the carribean and make landfall in Belize, killing 500 people in her path. People on the island alive in 1955 could not remember another hurricane, so that's 2 per 100 years (wish that was the rate on the east coast- we get at least 2 per YEAR!!)
Also no students were killed or seriously injured. There were some minor cuts and scrapes and so forth, but the death toll for grenada- 43 the last I heard were mostly locals and some tourists.
The school's been great about trying to get us up and running as soon as possible. We'll be split up for this term, some of us in NC, NY,KS, and FL and then hopefully we'll all be together in Grenada next term.
Feeding that kind of behavior only does the poster a favor, and that is to piss off people. There is obviously no rationale to his/her argument because you had a very valid point about the riots in L.A.... more deaths occured, looting and the whole 9 1/2 yards.
OMG, I just spit out my coffee...
