In 1986 Little Bray was hit by Hurricane Charlie.  Myself and my three children, two daughters aged nine and eleven, and my six year old son, were enjoying a normal day. Our house was one of a single storey terrace.  Towards evening, a neighbour’s son, Jimmy, called to the door.  “You’d better lift carpets and anything you can up off the floor.  The river is very high.  Block the door with whatever you have”.

I thanked him, and proceeded to jam the bottom of the front door with towels.  There wasn’t a lot I could lift except chairs and the television.  The children went to bed and I settled down for the evening. The river broke is banks at around ten pm. I went to the children’s bedroom.  Our first sign that something was happening, was when our cat high-tailed it to the back bedroom. Water started to seep through the house. “You’d better get dressed” I told them, “and put on your coats”.  The girls were in bunk beds, and my son was in his bed by the window.  They got their clothes on and we waited. We were all sitting on the top bunk, along with the cat. I thought we might have to climb onto the extension roof.  The window was jammed, and I might have to break it. It was dark.  The water outside could be higher.

Suddenly, there was a bang and the water was already in the back bedroom, rising fast. Outside we could hear the wind roaring.  As we waited, a small piece of paper floated across the water.  It was like something torn from a school book or one of the children’s books.  On it were the words “the lady from the underwater city will look after you”.  “Don’t worry kids, Our Lady will look after us” I said, “but we’d better move up to the front room”.  The ceiling in the front of the house was higher. I carried Dylan, as myself and the girls waded through the water, one carrying the cat. “Frisky is digging his claws into my arm” Andrea said.  By this time, the water was almost up to my waist. It had come in slowly to begin with, and then just gushed in pushing the towels out of its path.  We all sat on a cupboard by the front window. The cat sprang to a ledge higher up.  At some stage the lights went out and we sat in the darkness.

We waited through the night.  At one stage, as it got lighter, we laughed as a few cartons of yogurt floated from the kitchen and went straight up the chimney.  The force of the water had opened the fridge door.  I kept watching the bricks on the fireplace, gauging the height of the water. By daybreak, it had begun to recede. It was a very long night.  By around nine o’clock the next morning, all that was left was thick watery muck.

I was told the next day the Civil Defence had brought a boat down to evacuate residents. We didn’t hear them.  I bought Wellingtons for the children. The nuns at Ravenswell had set up mattresses for those evacuated.

Everything had been destroyed, electrical equipment, carpets, and all my photographs including wedding photos. My eldest daughter’s new school books for her first year in Loretto had been ruined.  In the weeks that followed, we stayed with the children’s grandparents who lived on the Vevay Road.  The girls went to school while friends helped me disinfect and sweep though the house several times, piling furniture outside for the Council to take away. Thankfully the sun shone on the muck and the destruction.

Josephine Nolan