I left Jamaica for a 10 day business trip the Tuesday before Ivan hit. I didn't even know it was coming until after I was in Illinois, so as you can imagine I was very worried about the friends and family back home, and I spared a few thoughts for my machine and other tech stuff as well .
Throughout all of Thursday, Friday and Saturday I lived on the weather channel website and cable station. I called or IM'd all my friends and relatives to make sure everyone was hunkering down. If I could have I would have flown back to JA to be with them but that wasn't an option unfortunately.
I had downloaded this weather program which allowed me to watch Ivan's track and get up to date weather advisories real-time, so I actually saw, with GREAT relief, when it started to turn away and keep offshore.
As of today, Monday, I've heard from a couple friends but I've lost contact with my father in St. Elizabeth, I hope he's ok and its just the phone lines down but I'm a little worried since our house was on top of the Santa Cruz mountains and it had barely survived Gilbert, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Its difficult to get calls into the island as I'm sure every other Jamaican in the world is trying to do the same thing I am .
I don't think power or net access is back up yet for most people in the Island but let's get the Hurricane stories going for those people who are able to post. Right now its most likely people like myself who just had to watch/listen and pray but hopefully by the middle of the week we can start gettting the first hand accounts