When the winds finally quieted, I ventured out to the yard. As I had after Hurricane Irma, I had to navigate downed electric wires and pieces of neighbors’ roofs.

Once again, our house was flooded. The blue tarpaulin that we had put up on our roof after Irma lay shredded on the ground. Once again, I looked up through the rafters and beheld blue sky.

My fear of heights now somehow cured, I grabbed a ladder and headed back onto the roof, balancing myself on rafters while draping the torn tarpaulin back over the open spaces and nailing it to the wood.

While on the roof I saw neighbors going door to door on our street, Ridge Road, a community cut into the hillside on the eastern end of the island. Some offered to repair roofs; others carried canned goods. Cassie, the nurse who helps to take care of my father, brought us ice.

My 74-year-old mother, machete in hand, was in her garden clearing brush away from her beloved mango, star fruit and soursop trees. “I’m just happy the rest of the roof remained! God is good!” she called up to me. Her gray Afro made her now look royal.

After all, we had just survived two huge hurricanes in less than two weeks, a feat, however bittersweet.