The Independent September 30 2017 The Independent September 30 2017 | Page 6

Hurricane fails to stop the press
6 The Independent. the Diaspora’s Multicultural Voice September 30 2017
Hollywood Report
St Maarten Herald back on the streets
of devastated island
By Alita Singh
THE DAILY HERALD
It’s been sixteen
days since the
humming of The
Daily Herald’s
printing press per-
meated the edito-
rial room and I walked out smelling slightly of
ink. In the chaos, I think I have forgotten what
ink smells like.
Then, I remember as the humming picks up
and the inky air drifts in. It is like putting my
nose to a new book and inhaling deeply. This is
was not imaginable hours after Irma struck St
Maarten/St Martin on September 6.
Residents of this 37-square-miles island shared
by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Re-
public of France are no strangers to hurricanes.
But, nothing, not even Hurricane Luis, a Category
Five that slammed into the island in 1995, could
have prepared the minds and eyes for what was
to come 22 years later.
Walk back with me to September 5. It was
business more or less as usual in hurricane season
– people went to work and stopped off at the su-
permarkets to get last minute necessities before
the approaching hurricane.
Night rolled in and the winds picked up and
our first newspaper since Hurricane Irma, a cate- the battle to stay alive superseded everything –
lantic Ocean with her destructive winds. roofs were clawed off and homes flooded, it took
gory five-plus monster, barrelled across the At-
minor worries, money troubles, heart break. As
First copies of the Daily Herald to be printed since Hurricane Irma rolls off the presses in
Philipsburg
doors from Irma who came like the big bad wolf,
huffing and puffing.
Quiet seeps in; the eye moves slowly over fol-
lowed by the tailwinds. Soon after, she was gone.
Daring to head outside the safe room took
courage. The scene outside was nothing but sheer
destruction. One task at a time, find neighbours.
The idea of being homeless dawned slowly.
Somehow though, it came after the need to start
telling the story of what happened here. It was
the need to tell our story in our words and not
allow it to be told by anyone else.
When ocean waters cutting off my community
from the rest of St. Maarten subsided in a few
… behold … internet access. That was the instant
I become an online journalist. I was a print jour-
nalist up until that moment. The Daily Herald
now existed on o nline and was a portal for some
many seeking any morsel of information about
the island.
From the moment I logged on to Facebook and
Gmail, there was no more time to think about
anything but attending to the desperate requests
for news about loved ones. Each of us, survivors
all, put aside lost roof, need for water and fo-
cused on those our profession called us to put
first our community.
We lived online these 16 days; posting as soon
hours after the storm, it was time to find out if the as we received info. But, tonight I listened as the
still standing? Could a newspaper even be made? desk for the first time in two weeks with an an-
story could be told. Was the newspaper building
The drive from home to the office was beyond
heart-breaking. How could we come back from
this?
The building was still there so was the press.
There was electricity driven by a generator and
press started her sweet lullaby and I leave my
swer to the constant question: “But Alita, when
all yuh printin’ again?”
Who says print is dead? Not even mean Tanty
Irma. Not she self!
SHIFT from the traditional to the extraordinary. Video advertisements are now available in
The Independent. Choose a unique way to send your message to our readers with a video ad.
Getting to Day 16, no surviving to this day,
sheer human determination and strength to brace
It’s easy and affordable. Call
416-278-9302 for details