Hurricane Ivan

HURRICANE IVAN
On September 11, 2004 hurricane Ivan devastated the island of Jamaica. JBC was not immune to the ravages of the hurricane and there was much damage. Trees were uprooted and roof torn off. The following is a pictorial view of the damage that resulted from Ivan and the repairs that were accomplished by crews from Southridge Community Church in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada with the help of the staff and students of JBC and local people.
Before...		After...

The Admin. building lost half of its roof and after the old roofing had been removed it was found that much of the wood beneath the lower roof sections was rotten. The crew replaced the damaged wood and put on new roofing so that the Admin. building today is a miraculous transformation.

The Library lost half its roof which resulted in damage to the books inside. Some of the books have been rescued and the Library staff worked very hard to dry out as many of the books as possible. A complete new roof was put on the Library and the books are being replaced in their shelves.

The porch area outside the women's dorm is a favorite study area for the students. The roof over the porch was blown off and this had to be fixed if the students were going to get their study area back. The team put on a new roof which returned the porch to its cozy dry atmosphere.

Power at the college was out from September 11 until September 25. Two utility poles were snapped at the ground by the storm. These poles were replaced by new ones and all of the wires that were down at the college were replaced with new ones. The money donated by Southridge Community Church in Canada provided for the labour and materials required to restore power to the college as well as provide all the roofing supplies.

Ivan bent the netball supports in double like a paperclip. One of the crew from Canada had welding experience which was put to good use. He was able to weld together new supports and thus return the netball/basketball courts to normal so the students could resume one of their favorite activities.

Ivan blew down lots of large trees on campus and the crew from Canada was able to remove them. The result was that within a few weeks of the storm the campus had been returned to its former beautiful condition.