The 1780s

The 1780s were disastrous hurricane years for most of the Caribbean islands. On October 10 1780 Barbados, and then most of the Windward Islands were hit by what is still referred to as the "Great Hurricane".

Writing in The Deadliest Atlantic Tropical Cyclones, Rappaport and Fernandez-Partagas say -

The largest loss . . . occurred in the Lesser Antilles in mid-October 1780, during The Great Hurricane. Estimates indicate that around 22,000 deaths occurred in that storm, with a total of about 9,000 lives lost in Martinique, 4,000-5,000 in St. Eustatius, and 4,326 in Barbados. Thousands of deaths also occurred offshore. . . .the number of fatalities during The Great Hurricane of 1780 exceeds the cumulative loss in any year (except 1780) and, in fact, in all other decades.

Jamaica was not affected by that hurricane, but endured two in 1780, one in 1781, one in 1784, another in 1785, and yet another in 1786. Accounts of these hurricanes can be read on this page.

1780

The first hurricane of this terrible decade hit the Montego Bay area and the North Coast on February 22, 1780. Forty ships were destroyed and sugar estates were damaged all along the North Coast.

The second hurricane struck on October 3, 1780. The Governor, Colonel John Dalling, reported the event to the Government in London:

I am sorry to be under the disagreeable necessity of informing your Lordships of one of the most dreadful calamities that has happened to this colony within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.

On the morning of the 3 instant, the weather being very close, the sky sudden became very much overcast, and an uncommon elevation of the sea immediately followed. Whilst the unhappy settlers at Savanna-la-Mar were observing this extraordinary Phenomenon, the sea broke suddenly in upon the town, and on its retreat swept every thing away with it, so as not to leave the smallest vestige of Man, Beast, or House behind.

This most dreadful catastrophe was succeeded by the most terrible hurricane that ever was felt in this country, with repeated shocks of an Earthquake which has almost totally demolished every building in the Parishes of Westmoreland, Hanover, part of St James and some parts of St Elizabeth's and killed, members of the white Inhabitants as well as of the negroes. The wretched inhabitants are in a truly wretched situation not a house standing to shelter them from the inclement weather not clothes to cover them, every thing being lost in the general wreck. And what is still more dreadful Famine staring them in the face.

Click here for two more, longer, accounts.