A COUPLE who lost their home of 54 years and suffered serious injuries during Storm Ciarán have praised Jersey’s “tremendous” community spirit, which kept them going through the turbulent final weeks of 2023.
Tony and Evie Perchard (79 and 76), speaking to the JEP from the drive of their soon-to-be demolished home, added that they had “learned not to dwell” on the “horror” of the night when their roof was blown off by a tornado and buried them in rubble.
But they said they would “never stop reflecting on how miraculous it is that Tony is alive”.
The pair have been living in sheltered accommodation provided by the parish of Trinity for over a month now. Their doormat, a Christmas present from their daughter, reads: “Perchards: Unbreakable Survivors.”
Two months ago, on the night of 1 November, a tornado – which was later confirmed as the strongest to have hit the British Isles in 70 years – exited the Island at Fliquet, where the Perchards lived.
Mrs Perchard said: “The tornado sucked Tony out of bed and threw him onto the floor at the same time as a ten-foot concrete window lint landed where he had been lying. Then, granite came down from the wall behind us, the roof timber went through the mattress, the base and the floor where his legs had been.”
After escaping the rubble, Mrs Perchard went across the road to neighbours Rob and Paul Hickling, who later won a Storm Heroes award. The father-and-son duo went to the ruined bedroom to save Mr Perchard.
Arriving in hospital shortly after the Island declared a “major incident”, the Perchards had the Emergency Department – miraculously – all to themselves. Only one other Islander was admitted later that night as a result of the storm.
Mrs Perchard continued: “Tony had to have a full-body scan at the Hospital, as well as three pints of blood and four pints of saline. Then he stopped breathing, but he’s recovered very well.”
The Perchards were two of more than 100 Islanders who were evacuated from their homes during the storm.
She said: “One thing that we have really discovered throughout the whole episode is how kind and caring other people are. We’ve had people that we don’t know, and are never likely to meet, gift things to us and send us lovely messages. We had thousands of messages from people all over the world.
“It has been wonderful and it gives you a much broader outlook on life, and that it’s maybe not all as bad as we thought it was. There are good people out there.”
The Perchards spoke about a friend who brought them a bag full of cashmere sweaters while the couple were housed at The Radisson.
“I’d never owned a cashmere sweater in my life, and all of a sudden I had six of them,” Mrs Perchard said.
There were also Christmas hampers, as well as many bottles of wine, from old friends who they had helped in the past.
The Perchards continued: “All those lovely messages and gifts are what have kept us going and kept our spirits up, knowing that people really are that kind. The community spirit and people rallying around us has been tremendous.
“There are lots of posts online where people blame the ‘Jersey Way’ for things that go wrong, but the ‘Jersey Way’ is the kindness we’ve experienced and that’s real Jersey people.”
Mr Perchard said: “It has been a bit of a mountain to climb, but we’re getting there. It was such a shock at the time, and we will still be learning about it, and ourselves, months down the line.”
“We don’t dwell on the horror of it,” his wife added. “The adrenaline kicked in and we went into survival mode. We just concentrated on getting out of there and getting on with our life.”
Following an operation for Mr Perchard later this month, their plans for 2024 are for him to get back to full health and take a trip to visit their children and grandchildren who live in Queensland, Australia.
Much further in the future, though, the couple hope to return to their home at Fliquet – even though half of their cottage needs to be demolished and the rest will have to be gutted back to the original granite walls.
Surveyors have predicted it will be three years before the couple can move back in.
“We are in this for the very long haul but, hopefully, it will be worth it to get it back to where it was,” Mrs Perchard said.
