Earthquakes, Hurricanes and floods, Hurricane Maria was terrible, one equally bad 400 years ago in Jamaica read this

 It's the end of 2017, I have not spoken with anyone that regrets seeing this one go on its way, hopefully with a lot of lessons learned under our belts. I wonder what the year will be remembered as I personally think it will have to do with the number and size of natural disasters that have taken place. They all started early in the year (as we all are aware) and continued right up until now, really, I read where the Thomas fire just outside of Santa Monica is still flaring up. I don't know how unbelievable all of the disasters that have occurred this year are, if for nothing else the sheer number of them, or the intensity. It truly has been a tough year, I won't even get into the mass murders or the wildly out of control political scene we are witnessing.
  It did start me to thinking about other natural disasters that have occurred and how this year would rank with them, I did not get very far in my investigations. In fact, I was stopped completely after beginning to read about the first disaster I chose, and a doozy it is. We have all heard and read about the Volcano eruption at Pompei, and Krakatoa, huge disasters that became instant "time capsules" due to everything being buried in many meters (yards) of Volcanic Ash. The lessons learned from them are questionable, however, the history gleaned from them is invaluable. Such is the subject of this blog:
  As luck may have it, I chose to read about the disaster which occurred on June 7, 1592, in Port Royal Jamaica, it is an amazing chain of events, one which was even more devastating than the Tsumi, and Hurricane which devastated Corpus Christi on September 14, 1919. I turned on the TV to take a break from my reading and studying when coincidentally a documentary was on about you guessed it, the disaster of June 7, 1592, it added to this story.

Some photos of buildings washed into the Ocean during
the Earthquake and Tsunami

  Earthquakes are not all that uncommon in the Caribbean, many of the islands are located on major earthquake faults, and the islands themselves are not all very stable due to their geological formations. Port Royal was the wealthiest English city in the world during the mid-1500's until the decade of the 1620's. The city was constructed by Pirates, treasures and "booty" from all around the world would end up at its docks in the holds of the pirate ships. During that period England was at war with Spain, a fairly common occurrence, it was the time of "Letters of Marque", a license to be a "Pirate" or "Privateer". The likes of Black Bart, Blackbeard, and Henry Morgan walked the streets of Port Royal partaking in the debauchery that ensued in that tropical town. One out of every four buildings in the town was either a house of prostitution, or a pub, the population of the town was 6,000, many transients. June 7, 1592, started out as a beautiful morning, there were a few notable exceptions that seemed to some survivors in hindsight something that they should have taken pause at. But as things go, humans by nature don't really connect circumstances with a premonition of what is to come. These struck me as strange as well, my wife is constantly bringing up "Earthquake Weather", and I answer with "there is no such thing." (I have changed my mind after studying this disaster) On the morning of June 7, 1592, the ocean was glassy smooth, a very strange state of affairs for that Southern facing city, it was like glass. No one thought too much of it, however, a few hours later the sky took on a bronze color, extremely odd, people started thinking something was going on. The third strange effect was when the ocean rolled back exposing the shore, the water disappeared, in some places hundreds of yards (Liganeau, now Kingston) in others it retreated as far as a mile. (Yallahs) At 11:43 (a watch was found stuck at this time) the earthquake struck, fissures opened up throughout the city, people fell through the cracks by the hundreds. Some fell deep inside, others barely below the surface and others trapped up to their necks when the earth closed on them. The ground the city was built on, turned into "quicksand", water permeated the sandy foundation, buildings were swallowed whole by the liquid sand

All land mass inside the red dotted line returned to the Sea. 

coming from underground. This was just the first of three powerful earthquakes to strike the city that morning. Every building in town was destroyed including all but one English Fort, two-thirds of the town (33 acres) immediately sank into the ocean after the initial shock. All of the docks sunk at once, it only took 2 minutes for all but 1/10th of the city to be covered with water and buildings to be sunk in the quicksand and disappear into the ocean. The town consisted of 6500 residents, and around 2,000 buildings, multi-story and mostly constructed of brick. There were a number of ships in the harbor, this was a very dynamic shipping port, one of the busiest in the world for its time. In fact, there was more money in circulation in Port Royal during this period of time than there was in London. In excess of 20 ships capsized in the harbor, now remember this initial destruction took only 2 minutes to happen. During the initial shock, the liquefied sand was reported to have formed waves, helping to force everything into the ocean, when the shaking stopped the sand solidified once again, trapping many people up to their necks and burying others. 2,000 people lost their lives in this first 2 minutes, a similar number died within two weeks afterward from disease caused by the rotting bodies stacked up everywhere, an estimated 4,000+ residents met their demise.
  The earthquakes brought on Tsunamis, the water started to return filling up the harbor at first, then a wall of water in excess of 6 feet high struck the now destroyed spit of beach Port Royal occupied until minutes prior. An English frigate, the "Swan", was in the harbor until it was picked up by the tsunami and transported over rooftops down the main street where it's remains were found, the only thing stopping it was a house it slammed into.

A model of the HMS Swan, I added this to illustrate how large
the ship was, and to imagine how much force it took to fling
it a long way inland.

People climbed aboard and used it for refuge. It must be said, even if the technology to build Tsunami structures to afford people refuge existed, (which it did not), there is no bedrock or stable structures below Port Royal to anchor them to. They did not only not have the technology but the materials were non-existent at that time.
  There was nothing left of the city, however, a 4th wave was about to strike the disaster scene, looters. Before the destruction was over, survivors began to loot, running into what remained of the stores and homes carrying out anything of value, after all, they were all pirates of one form or another. They stripped the dead of everything, that was not the end of the destruction, however.
  The destruction was not limited to just Port Royal, which an attempt at rebuilding failed twice, once in 1703 when it burned to the ground and the last straw a hurricane in 1722. The rest of Jamaica was destroyed as well, Kingston (Liguanea at the time) all of the houses were destroyed and all of the water from the wells was ejected into the air, all of the houses at St. Jago were also destroyed. By the year 1725, Piracy had seen it's best days, the war with Spain was over and the letters of Marque were no longer issued, by 1730 there were no longer any Privateers in the Caribbean, or employed by the Governments of the day.
  Port Royal was the epicenter of all things evil in the 16th century, after all, it was full of pirates, the ruling powers had a real love/hate relationship with them. Religion was a very prominent force during those days and the repercussions of this event were felt all around the world. Many religious leaders attributed the destruction to "divine intervention", on the people of Port Royal for their sinful ways, and this was declared by the members of the Jamaica Council, they lived there. That sentiment was not confined to just Jamaica, the Reverend Cotton Mather in Boston "Behold, an accident speaking to all our English America." In other words look out it's going to happen to every den of sin in America now, that's pretty heavy duty stuff when your entire life is based on faith.

Queen Anne's revenge, a movie prop depicting Blackbeards
ship, no mention of Pirates is complete without mentioning
Blackbeard.

  I have often wondered what would happen if a chain of events such as this took place, it was devastating, and in hindsight avoidable. (It's never fair to say that when one is reflecting on history, they did not possess the knowledge we have today.) There was no planning commissions, building codes, or seismic engineering, There was little knowledge of the workings of the ocean, earthquakes or liquefaction, with no idea that a retreat of the ocean means a tsunami, the residents were defenseless. No matter what their occupation was (piracy) they were still victims and suffered greatly, it must have been horrifying to be swallowed up by the earth than to have it close in you, holy cow. There is an account of a man that was swallowed by the liquefied sand, sucked into the earth he was carried in the waves of sand, underground, out to sea. He surfaced in the harbor far from shore, he swam until a boat picked him up, he immediately gave up privateering and joined the clergy, he became very religious, I imagine a lot of survivors did.
 
This is ancient history now but it is important for us to know this, it could happen again, I'm not predicting it, and as usual, there are people saying it could happen at any time, OK maybe it can but it doesn't mean it will. It's good to know for our own self-awareness, and self-reliance, disasters of that magnitude remind us that things can get real nasty real quick, and we all need to be prepared. We shouldn't allow ourselves to become complacent with the feeling that sort of thing will not happen, liquefication was the main culprit, brought on by earthquakes which struck a very poorly designed and constructed town, it doesn't mean that can happen where you live, but the lesson is, do we really know all that is possible to happen in our area?

  Thanks for reading and sharing, leave a comment or a story, Thanks.
jacquesandkate  emergencykitsplus.com