My God, The Tree and Me: Remembering Hurricane Hattie

The 2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season is underway.  While we have been fortunate thus far not to be affected by adverse weather, tonight’s episode of Belize on Reel looks back at the harrowing experience of Hurricane Hattie in 1961 and the devastating loss in its wake.  The story of Reverend Otto Wade may not be familiar to many, but it’s a gripping account of how he lost his mother and five siblings to the natural disaster.  The horrifying tale is also the subject of a recently published book written by Jennifer Woods-Cadle.  News Five’s Isani Cayetano reports.

Isani Cayetano, Reporting

The burgeoning island destination that is modern-day Caye Caulker is a far cry from what it was after being ravaged by one of the strongest and deadliest tropical cyclones to hit the colony of British Honduras in October 1961.  At ten years old, Otto Wade’s life as an islander suddenly upended.

Otto Wade

Rev. Otto Wade, Hurricane Survivor

“When the lightening flashed, one could see the forms, the coconut trees and things like that and so I swam towards them gradually.  The rain was as if though it was sand that was hitting you and I remember that the sea was warm, so you were glad when the sea came over you because at least the rain wasn’t pelting you.  I went and held on to the coconut tree and kept going higher, as was necessary, and held on there from like maybe midnight, one o’clock or somewhere there until morning broke and you could see what was happening around.”

That image is captured in an illustration on the cover of a book written by Wade’s niece.  The story of how he lost his mother and five siblings to Hurricane Hattie and how he later found God through the Methodist faith is fascinating.

Jennifer Woods-Cadle

Jennifer Woods-Cadle, Author

“Growing up as a child, we would sit with our mom and she would be talking to us about this incident whereby she had lost her four sisters, a brother and her mom in Hurricane Hattie.  And I had remembered one specific time I had asked her if she had ever spoken, she and her brother, about Hattie, if they had ever sat together, and she said no, they never did speak about it.”

The tragedy that befell Wade’s family during the Category 5 storm was unspeakable.  For many years, the events of that fateful night on Caye Caulker were resigned to his memory.  Wade, now a retired pastor, vividly recounts what happened the morning after.

Rev. Otto Wade

“My father came around, he had survived, but he said that he had held on to two of my sisters, but couldn’t hold them all that long and finally he had to let them go and that’s when I asked about my mom and that’s when he said that she had passed away, you know, she is dead.”

My God, The Tree and Me is catharsis for Wade and his surviving family.  The book is an emotional release after decades of repressing the anger, hurt and emptiness of grief.

Jennifer Woods-Cadle

“It was sad, truly sad.  It tugged at my heart, it brought a tear to my eyes.”

Jennifer Woods-Cadle, a retired educator, was inspired to tell her uncle’s story and set out to publish her first literary work.

Jennifer Woods-Cadle

“That was when I think I had the first inspiration that this story needs to be told because it’s something that obviously traumatized them because of the way their life took the path that they took and they needed to release this and so I took it on me to write this story.”

Regrettably, counseling for the kind of trauma that Reverend Wade endured as a child was not available in colonial Belize.  He had to live through the anguish and seek solace in the church.

Rev. Otto Wade

“In that kind of situation, you don’t have the therapy and things like that that is afforded these days when children go through that kind of trials and tribulations.  But the pastors were good, there was one particular one that I am always grateful for because having then gotten back into schooling because for months after the hurricane there was no schooling.  I was then in Dangriga and was able to go back and get back into schooling.  By the time it reached the point of going into high school, my grandmother didn’t have the eight dollars, as it was then, eight dollars to go to Stann Creek High [School].”

But he would also overcome that obstacle, educate himself and go on to become a pillar in the Methodist Church.  Reverend Wade lost his family to the devastating storm.  Today, he is comforted by photos of his loved ones.

Jennifer Woods-Cadle

“The memories, the family is everything.  I think about my mom not having, and even my uncle, not having pictures of their mom and their siblings and when we’re not physically able to hold, pictures can bring back the memories, and so, yeah, this is why we have all these pictures around family.”

Isani Cayetano for News Five.