{"id":980,"date":"2017-12-22T18:25:33","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T18:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=980"},"modified":"2017-12-22T18:25:33","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T18:25:33","slug":"mommy-we-going-to-die-now-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/?p=980","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Mommy, we going to die now, right?&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em><strong>A survivor&#8217;s personal account of the MoBay flood<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>Michael Nattoo<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n<em>Staff Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<strong>We go be alright man, God will help us, we go be alright!\u201d Pauline Fletcher Dellis recalls saying those words aloud, but remembers instantly doubting them when her 8-year-old son, with fear in his eyes, asked her: \u201cMommy, we going to die now, right? We going to die now.\u201d Dellis wanted to reassure him that they would survive, but being trapped in that little shop on Union Street, with a crying 4-month-old baby, the baby\u2019s terrified young mother, and three children, including hers, she couldn\u2019t. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The floodwaters were almost up to her neck, and on November 22, 2017 \u2013 the day the devastating flood ravaged Montego Bay, Dellis was sure that that tyre shop would become their watery tomb.<\/p>\n<p>For Dellis, the light rains she witnessed earlier would not dampen her daily routine. She would leave work from her job as a Janitor, like any other day, pick up her son from school, and head straight home. When she left work that day though, she realized things would be different.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I left work, sometime after 5 and reached on Union Street, the rain was falling harder, and the water was steadily rising,\u201d Dellis told the <strong>Western Mirror<\/strong>, \u201cit was almost up to my knees.\u201d Worried about the safety of her son, Dellis kept walking, but soon saw something that brought her much relief. \u201cI saw someone holding my son\u2019s hand, because I recognized his raincoat, and they were heading into the shop (Union Street Auto Parts).\u201d One of Dellis\u2019 friends, whom she identifies as Jessica, had already made the trip to pick up her son for her and was headed into the shop to seek shelter from the heavy rains. Dellis joined them in the shop, where two other kids were seen waiting out the rains.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJessica, look deh,\u201d Dellis remembers saying, pointing to the floodwaters that seemed to have suddenly risen. The road was by then completely covered, and the water had reached the midway point of the glass windows. \u201cJessica, we can\u2019t stay here so enuh, look deh!\u201d Dellis says again, but Jessica rebutted that if they even tried to open the door, all six of them would certainly die. Dellis knew their best chance of survival was to stay in that shop, and so she did. As much as they made the choice to stay, Dellis realized that equally, they were trapped in there.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>\u2018WE GO DROWN!\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBefore mi know it, the place was rapidly flooding,\u201d Dellis recalls to the <strong>Western Mirror,<\/strong> \u201cso Jessica and I took the children and put them on the counter.\u201d Dellis explained that it wasn\u2019t until she heard a loud \u2018crack\u2019 that she realized just how serious it was. \u201cThe water broke the bottom glass and started rushing in, rapidly filling the place up, so I took the baby from Jessica, and told her to go over the counter where the kids were. When she did, I gave her back the baby, and climbed over the counter too.\u201d That proved to be a temporary relief, as the water quickly rose to the level of the counter, forcing Jessica to hold her baby above her head, and the other kids had to stand so as not to allow the water to cover them. \u201cMs. Pauline! Ms. Pauline! We go drown! We go drown Ms. Pauline! Nobody nah go help we!\u201d Dellis remembers Jessica screaming. \u201cNo Jessica, God go help we, we go alright Jessica!\u201d Dellis says, trying to keep her calm. \u201cOw mommy! Something a shock me!\u201d Dellis\u2019 son said, turning her focus to him. Jessica explained that the computers in the store were shorting out, which must be causing the shocking. \u201cBecause of that, I had to lift my son and put him on my hip\u201d Dellis explained, at which point she remembers her son asking her: \u201cMommy, we going to die, right? We going to die now.\u201d Hearing those words from her son, Dellis said she broke, and started crying too, feeling powerless in the grips of what she felt was sure death. By that point, the water was up to her breasts, and the kids, who were all screaming at that point, were almost submerged. \u201cYes, we go dead now,\u201d Dellis said, pulling her son closer to her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>SAVIOURS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At that moment, another loud, crashing sound was heard, signaling yet another section of the glass being broken. But this time, it wasn\u2019t the water. It was a man who had swam up to the windows, wrapped his fist in a shirt, and punched the window, peering through to see if anyone was in the shop. He saw them. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t hear all that he was saying because the water was so loud, but we heard when he said, \u2018dem in ya!\u2019\u201d Dellis said. Another man was immediately seen swimming across the road, who came up to the window and offered to help them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne by one they pulled us out, taking out the baby first and handing him to someone on the roof,\u201d Dellis explained. In one instance, one of the children, while being pulled out, was sinking, and Dellis had to grab the electrical panel for support, which repeatedly shocked her, and grabbed the little girl by her hair and pulled her back up from under the water, at which point the heroes who came to help pulled her out.<\/p>\n<p>Though they got into difficulties when they were being pulled out by the men \u2013 one a fruit vendor named Javaughn and the other identified as \u2018Rasta\u2019, both Jessica and Dellis made it out alive, with Dellis suffering lacerations all over her body. She got over 25 stitches in that incident.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose men, who were completely strangers, saved us, and we are so grateful to them, and want to thank them,\u201d Dellis said, grateful that all of them faced the jaws of death, and lived to tell the tale. \u201cThere are still some good people in MoBay,\u201d Dellis concluded.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_981\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-981\" style=\"width: 212px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-981\" src=\"http:\/\/westernmirror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Baby-being-lifted-212x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"212\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Baby-being-lifted-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Baby-being-lifted-496x700.jpg 496w, https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Baby-being-lifted.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 212px) 100vw, 212px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-981\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A frame from the popular video which captured the moment of the rescue of the 4-month-old<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A survivor&#8217;s personal account of the MoBay flood Michael Nattoo Staff Reporter \u201cWe go be alright man, God will help us, we go be alright!\u201d Pauline Fletcher Dellis recalls saying those words aloud, but remembers instantly doubting them when her 8-year-old son, with fear in his eyes, asked her: \u201cMommy, we going to die now, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":982,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[331,335,329,332,333,334,330],"class_list":["post-980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","tag-drowning","tag-flood-survivors","tag-mobay-flood","tag-mommy","tag-saved","tag-saviours","tag-union-street"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=980"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":985,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/980\/revisions\/985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westernmirror.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}