Hurricane Irma

18^th September.  10 days ago Hurricane Irma swept through the Caribbean and Florida, leaving a trail of destruction behind it. Many people lost their lives, and countless others lost their homes and any means of making a living. Of course hurricanes occur regularly every year, and once they pass, people pick themselves up, rebuild and start again. But Irma was a monster. About 800 miles wide, it was the size of Texas and wherever it made landfall it did so with catastrophic ferocity.  The destructive power of winds travelling at over 185 mph was only too evident on islands such as Barbuda, Anguilla, St Barts, St Maarten and both British and US Virgin Islands. In Florida, millions were advised to evacuate their homes as the storm approached, although it had thankfully lost some of its strength by the time it hit the mainland.

Hurricane Irma reaches Cuba

Our Rotary Club has a strong record of responding to natural disasters around the world. Most memorable  was the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004 in the Indian Ocean. We were outside Tesco in Sunbury collecting within a couple of days, and people responded with amazing generosity, with £10 and £20 notes being placed in our buckets. I can’t remember how much we collected in one day, but it was sufficient to purchase at least 5 Shelter Boxes, which I recall cost around £300 each at the time. Shelter Boxes provide the means for a family of up to 10 to survive for several weeks, with a large tent, cooking equipment, a water purifier, blankets, torch and tool kit. I recall a similar response to the Haiti earthquake in 2010.

A Shelter Box

The key to our success in fundraising for these causes was being out collecting in a very short space of time after disaster struck, whilst it still dominated the news bulletins. People can be extraordinarily generous when such disasters are foremost in their minds, as it is a natural impulse to want to do something to help, and we were providing the means for them to do so. Tesco supermarket in Sunbury has always supported our efforts, for which we are most grateful.

Tesco at Sunbury

So it was that our club members wanted to do something to support the relief effort in the wake of Irma. Last Wednesday the speaker we had booked at our meeting was unable to attend, which gave us the opportunity to discuss what we should do, at some length. Chris Arnot, who actually has a timeshare apartment in the British Virgin islands, and therefore some understanding of the plight of the people there, led the discussion. He regularly visits the Rotary Club of Tortola and has become aware that Rotary District 7020, which covers the Caribbean, has set up a Disaster Fund to provide relief to those worst affected by the storm. We felt that on this occasion, rather than purchase Shelterboxes, our money would have more immediate effect if we simply sent  everything we collect to this fund.

The lower photo, taken post-Irma, shows all the greenery stripped from Caribbean islands

I accompanied Chris to Tesco and we met up with Customer Experience manager Conor Halliday, who is our usual contact, and he readily agreed for us to collect outside the store on Saturday, 16^th September. Karen Sutton designed a super poster to display whilst collecting, and my old friend Peter Petersens of Mailboxes etc in Weybridge printed a couple of copies for us. Tesco supplied an A-board for us to display the posters. So we were all set, and with the assistance of our colleagues at Shepperton & Sunbury Rotary, all slots were filled at the store from 10 a.m until 8 p.m. on Saturday. Ken was to come back and forth during the day to collect the contents of our buckets.

Paraquita Bay Tortola before Irma....

.....Paraquita Bay after

The PDG and I took the first slot from 10 until 11 a.m. and parked ourselves just inside the foyer. We took a while to decide the best place for the A-board to go, for maximum impact. It started inside the foyer, then was placed outside, before bringing it inside again. As the hour progressed it became apparent to me that a wheelchair was a major asset when collecting for charity. People were walking past me to put cash into the PDG’s bucket. Many didn’t even know what she was collecting for, they just saw her, in her wheelchair, and decided to give her money. I decided to hide my annoyance at being upstaged in this way, because after all money in buckets was what we were there for. I was aware that the supermarket provides wheelchairs for the use of disabled customers, and I contemplated seeing if I could get hold of one, but thought better of it. 

The PDG and me with A-board

Several people stopped for a chat, including one woman who told me she remembered me from the Christmas street collections, which her children look forward to every year. I assured her that the real Father Christmas always accompanies us, and any similarity to me was purely coincidental. The PDG meanwhile picked up a speaker for a future meeting.

Father Christmas leaves his sleigh outside Tesco at Christmas with elf driver

Now and again, somebody would question why we were collecting at all. For instance, one woman asked why British taxpayers should be collecting for the British Virgin Islands, which are full of millionaires avoiding paying their taxes in the UK. My response was that not everyone living there was a millionaire, and many people have lost everything. Furthermore, by sending donations to a Rotary disaster fund, we were ensuring that all the money raised would be used by Rotarians on the spot to give help where it was most needed.

Tesco store manager Robbie with Caroline, Norma, Ken, Ian and Eric

Collections continued throughout the day, with the PDG and I taking the final slot, from 7 to 8 p.m. I was amused to see that in an effort to gain maximum impact our A-board had by now been moved into the entrance doorway, so customers had to take evasive action to avoid crashing their trollies into it.  The day had been slower than we had hoped, although our busiest time came as 8 o’clock approached. On reflection I think our problem was about timing. We were collecting more than 7 days after the event, and news headlines had moved on from Hurricane Irma, so it wasn’t foremost in people’s minds. Over the course of the day we collected £450, but with further donations pledged by Rotary members, our final total was more like £1100, a respectable sum for our Treasurer to send off to the Disaster fund.

Janet, Caroline and Lyn, who seems to have turned into Dolly Parton for the day

Postscript: As I write this I am listening to the News. A new Hurricane, Maria, is now battering the Caribbean islands. Let’s hope it doesn’t follow the same course.