HOUSELESS TEACHERS

Wayne Coley had only seconds to decide whether to stay or run. The 31-year veteran teacher at Frome Technical High School watched as his kitchen door flew open – twice – before the bedroom door did the same. The house, already shaking under Hurricane Melissa’s assault, felt as though it were breathing its last. He stepped outside just in time.

“I didn’t stay in there for it to collapse on me,” Coley, who teaches entrepreneurship at the Westmoreland-based school, told The Sunday Gleaner last week. “It was after the lull that I went back and saw that everything was flattened. I lost everything.”

The grade 11 supervisor at the Westmoreland-based school, whose daughter is among the current exam cohort, is now living with his sisters in Amity district in the parish after his two-room home was completely destroyed in late October when the Category 5 storm’s fierce winds and floodwaters ravaged western Jamaica and sections of some mid-island parishes.

“I survived Hurricane Beryl last year. I thought the hills behind me could provide a block to the raging winds, but it did not happen this time. So it’s my family to the rescue,” he said.

Coley said all materials for his students are stored at school, so he did not lose their data.

Describing his reaction last Wednesday when The Sunday Gleaner visited the school, he said he was in “awe” when he viewed the catastrophe.

And even while facing the trauma of losing everything, he, like several other educators who spoke with The Sunday Gleaner, said his focus remains on his exam cohort – many of whom are also displaced.

But Coley is not alone.

Several teachers who live and work particularly in the hurricane-ravaged western end of the island are also displaced and are staying with relatives or friends.

Despite their personal losses, many educators are now preparing for the resumption of classes for external-exam cohorts at high schools deemed safe by the Ministry of Education for partial reopening.

The Jamaica Teachers’ Association’s (JTA) South-Central Regional head, Georgia Waugh Richards, said about 300 teachers in Clarendon, Manchester and St Elizabeth were impacted when Hurricane Melissa slammed Jamaica on October 28.

Preliminary records show that at least 104 teachers lost their roofs and all their household furnishings, four homes were completely destroyed, 15 teachers were affected by flooding, five lost livestock and farms, three reported structural damage, and another five suffered partial roof loss. Teachers in Westmoreland, St James, Trelawny and other areas were also included in the assessment.

In response, the JTA has allocated $35 million for educators who suffered severe hurricane damage.

Among those facing the emotional weight of recovery is Allison Johnson, who teaches history and social studies at Godfrey Stewart High in Savanna-la-Mar. She is now living with her parents in the Darling Street area after losing everything when her roof blew off. Nonetheless, she said her priority remains supporting the students.

“Focus is on the children”

“I have students who themselves have lost everything. You have to show empathy for them and be their comfort,” she told The Sunday Gleaner. “As a young teacher, you have to learn to protect yourself and your emotions, and so right now the focus is on the children.”

Johnson said the school was in the middle of registration for the external examination when the devastating hurricane hit.

She remembers the moment the storm overwhelmed her home, admitting that she cried at the loss.

“One side of the roof went off, so I began moving the stuff to the other side of the house. Then that side went. I sat in the roofless house with water pouring in on me and cried. I lost everything. The storm was lingering for so long and I asked God when it would go, so I can begin to pick up the pieces,” she recalled.

Godfrey Stewart’s vice-principal, Margaret Johnson, said counselling sessions have been planned for staff and students, noting that they started with senior teachers with the plan to move to general staff.

“All categories of staff will receive counselling,” she said.

The school has still been unable to contact some staff members due to poor connectivity and blocked roads. However, at least one teacher’s house was completely flattened, while eight of the school’s 62 staff members suffered severe or total impact.

At Frome Technical High School, guidance counsellor Hyacinth Headley-Lewin said she saw her life flash before her as floodwaters rose inside her concrete house.

“I can’t swim and when I saw the water begin to rise, I knew it was time to leave. About 16 of us ended up on the third floor of a concrete house. People who didn’t talk to each other for whatever reason all ended up in the same space, and it became the refugee house,” she said.

Too traumatic to

leave the house

“For two weeks I did not leave the house to view the devastation anywhere. It was too traumatic and I was overwhelmed,” said Headley-Lewin.

When The Sunday Gleaner visited her home, dozens of books lay in the sun in what used to be her garage.

“I don’t even know why I am even drying the books because they are completely destroyed. But they are so expensive to replace,” she expressed with sadness, while giving thanks for life and vowing to take things a day at a time.

The school’s agricultural science teacher is also houseless. Very little contact has been made with her, as access and connectivity were proving difficult.

“Right now, no one knows the status of her accommodation,” said a school official.

While the school buildings fared well in the hurricane, all its agricultural products and livestock, including chickens for the canteen, were lost.

At Belmont Academy, administrative secretary Lisa Blackwood-Powell is also homeless after losing everything.

“I am now living at the back of a church, and even though the church is damaged, that’s where I am. Our house was a mixture of board and concrete and only the concrete walls remain,” she revealed, adding that her church family is assisting her with basic supplies.

“I am distraught and stressed, but still hopeful. I trust in God and hold on to His promises and keep a song in my heart,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

Across the border, teacher Princess Walter-Allie from St Elizabeth Technical High School (STETHS) described running from room to room as the roof of her parents’ house blew off section by section.

“We were watching neighbours’ roofs destroyed. Our neighbours came to stay with us when they lost their roofs. But then ours started to blow off, one room at a time. As soon as we run from one place to another place that had a roof, it also blew off until everything was gone,” she recalled.

They eventually took refuge in the bathroom, where she placed her young son in a basin and covered him with a shower curtain.

She and her parents are now living in cramped quarters in Brompton.

Another STETHS teacher, who lives in Luana, lost his home entirely.

A senior teacher at Salt Marsh Primary and Infant School in Trelawny also lost the roof of her rented home and all its contents and is now living with her parents.

A teacher at Kinloss Primary, also in Trelawny, suffered such severe losses that she has been unable to return to school.

Teachers at Hammersmith Preparatory, Wakefield, and Refuge Primary were also among those severely impacted.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com