Lieutenant Dana Lovell has been a firefighter for more than18 years. Although he said he could not remember exactly what was happening in this picture taken on Glebe Road in the aftermath of Hurricane Emily 15 years ago, he did recall other events of that morning.

“My crew had worked the previous night and were due to knock off the morning of September 25,” he said. “Just before we were set to leave, we received a call of a serious roof leakage in the St. Monica's Road area.”

Once they were set to leave the residence, Lt. Lovell said the winds started picking up in the area and the weather began to deteriorate.

“And to make matters worst, I couldn't get the truck started. It kept stalling,” he said.

Lt. Lovell said as he fought to bring the engine to life, the truck was rocking from side to side as the hurricane intensified.

“The wind was so strong that the windshield felt like it was going to cave in,” he said.

Eventually, he got the fire truck started, but not before another distressed resident knocked on the window and said the heavy downpour was causing her house to flood.

And according to Lt. Lovell, when he and a fellow officer followed the woman on foot, they were surprised by what happened next.

“She was walking down the steps leading to her house when a gust of wind got under her jacket and caused her to fly into the air.

“Officer Tucker and I grabbed her by the arms and pulled her back down,” he said. “I couldn't believe that happened. That woman was literally about to fly. If somebody would have told me about the incident, I probably wouldn't have believed them.”

As he reflected on that date back in 1987, Lt. Stovell said it was definitely one he would never forget.

“We just inundated with calls for help Island-wide. We didn't knock off until nine o'clock that night,” he said.

@EDITRULE:

When asked whether he remembered the day Hurricane Emily whipped the Island almost 16 years ago, former director of Government Information Services (now Department of Communication and Information) Bryan Darby responded: “Quite vividly.”

For Mr. Darby, the shock of Hurricane Emily hit hours before the Island' s residents had any idea that it was on the way.

“At five o'clock that morning my phone rang at home and a Police officer asked me whether I was the director of GIS,” Mr. Darby said. “He said we had an emergency situation. A hurricane was due to hit the Island and it was my job to alert the nation. The call was definitely a tremendous shock.”

Mr. Darby, now the chief correspondent for VSB News, said he knew the task was not going to be an easy one, as all of the local radio stations were on satellite feed at playing overseas programmes at that hour of the morning.

“There was nobody for me to talk to. It was the worst hour of my life,” he said.

Mr. Darby said he eventually he contacted the stations' owners and roused them out of bed, but it was not an easy task.

“You couldn't believe how complacent the people were back then,” he said.

After arriving at Police Headquarters at 7 a.m. Mr. DArby said he was nervous about the thought of Islanders travelling to work, oblivious of the imminent danger. And when his department was finally able to get the hurricane warnings on the airwaves, Mr. Darby said he still had to call them every hour to stress the importance of the issue.

“The stations were concerned about making sure they played the commercials their sponsors had paid for.

“No one was taking it (Emily) seriously. It was almost like a dream,” he said.