When Jean Howes heard about the deaths on the Causeway due to Hurricane Fabian she recalled the memorable ride her husband had in a taxi crossing the very same bridge during a hurricane 55 years ago.

On October 7, 1948 Betty DeSilva and Ronald Marshall decided their wedding was going ahead - regardless of the 110 mph winds promised by an approaching hurricane.

Mrs. Howes recalls that wedding, not because she was a guest, but because her then husband, Lorrain Southern, had offered to pick up the Reverend slated to conduct the ceremony.

He was stuck in St. George's with no transportation to the Wesleyan Methodist Church where the wedding was to be held.

"When he came home that day he told me he had been across the Causeway during the storm. He realised he was going across during the height of the hurricane and it was something he said he would never forget," said Mrs. Howes.

As Mr. Southern made his way down to St. George's everything was calm but when he turned around to head back to the church with Rev. C.B. Sindon in the taxi the winds began to pick up and the waves began to lash the Causeway.

"The eye of the hurricane had gone through when he went down to St. George's but when he went back across the Causeway the car was rocking from the storm. He said he couldn't tell the land from the water probably because there was so much wind and rain," she said.

"When Rev. Sindon showed up at the church he was green at the gills," said Sylvia O'Connor, Betty's sister.

At the church, the evening wedding was interrupted by the hurricane's force, which caused the lights to go out and put the organ out of action.

But the church was lit with candles and the Reverend made it safely although Mrs. Howes said he was sick on the way there in her husband's cab.

"They didn't think they were going to make it across the Causeway with so much water coming and waves coming over and the Reverend was quite an old man and got sick in the car," said Mrs. Howes.

"It really seemed like such a big thing to come across the Causeway in a hurricane. After this hurricane everyone was so upset about going across the Causeway during a hurricane and for those people to be lost, I think 'it could have been them - the old minister and Lorrain.'"