Living in Grand Cayman

Quick night update.

Good and bad news …

The good : The storm seems to have considerably slowed down and is now a Tropical storm and will probably only be a category 1 hurricane by the time it gets to Cayman.  A category 1 would not be all that bad (not that its good either …) and should not cause too much damage considering how well prepared people are.

The bad: The storm is steering a more southern route now, aiming a lot closer to Grand Cayman.  It was supposed to pass way north of Jamaica also. Now the Jamaicans will feel Gustav’s wrath and we may also get to see it much more close & personal.

More news in the morning!  Thanks so much to everyone who posted comments or sent me an email.  Your words of encouragement are much appreciated! 🙂

Good evening,

Its nice and sunny here in Grand Cayman.  Very humid though so the a/c is on so that everyone (myself and the pets) is comfortable. Not surprising to feel so much humidity with all the tropical systems floating around the Caribbean. The island is quite calm ; most people seem to have done their shopping yesterday and put their shutters up in the last 24h.  Most people are more than ready for this.

This storm is painfully slow … lets get this over with already!  It has barely left Haiti after spending all day there. The “spaghetti chart” is all over the place (see below) so no one really knows where this Gustav storm will really go! One of the forecasts have it directly on Grand Cayman (purple) , one has it on the sister islands (red), one on Jamaica (white) and some on Cuba (the others).  Very reliable!  🙂

The National Hurricane Center in Miami (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov) has it passing about 100 miles from us.  From my experience, their forecasts are quite good. Since I have gotten quite a few emails and messages today from readers (thanks!) I though I would also mention Weather Underground & StormCarib. Wunderground (http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/?index_region=at) has great data and StormCarib (http://www.stormcarib.com) has local correspondents (including myself) who post comments about whats going on locally. Great sites to bookmark.

In any case, the shutters are fully up and ready to face whatever the storm tosses at us.

For my Canadian readers (and those in North-east USA) and to close out this post; did you know that there was a hurricane in the 1930’s that went all the way to Montreal via New-England?  I only learned about this today ; Interesting don’t you think? I never knew that they could go so much to the north.

Here is the reference and write-up about it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Hurricane_of_1938

This morning when looking at the weather sites, I had to refresh my screen a few times.  The storm is still over/near Haiti and has barely moved.  It has almost stalled!  That is good & bad news at the same time. The good : The trajectory may change from the forecasts.  The bad : It can take its time to gain strength again after dropping many inches of rain on Haiti.

Notice that the storm is only slightly more to the west (left) compared to my post yesterday afternoon! This storm is very slooooow! Haiti sure is getting lots of rain out of this one.

Our local airline, Cayman Airways, has canceled all non-Miami/Ft. Lauderdale flights.  They have also added a whole bunch of flights to Miami to evacuate all those that wish to leave.  Basically, the three Boeing 737’s will be flying back & fourth to Miami all day today and tomorrow.  After the last flight out, they will park the planes somewhere safe, most probably at the Miami airport and return once the storm has passed.  This morning I received an email from a tourist currently staying in cayman and in a bit of a panic. (if you are reading this, I hope my email helped!)  I suggested to the person (and I recommend it to any tourists still in Cayman) to seriously consider this option and leave before the storm.

A quick update …

As of 8pm EST, the government of the Cayman Islands has issued a hurricane watch!  That means that hurricane conditions are possible within the next 36h.

Next step is a hurricane warning ; thats when it really gets serious.  If Gustav continues its current path, that would probably be tomorrow evening.

Lets hope things change!

Gustav is now moving west and will pass north of Jamaica. Then … who knows. Current forecasts have the eye of the storm passing about 95 miles from Grand Cayman and much, much closer to the sister islands (Cayman Brac & Little Cayman)

A work colleague showed me a new & pretty neat hurricane tracking site called StormPulse (www.stormpulse.com) A screen shot can be seen below with the path of Gustav passing above Grand Cayman ; hopefully.

This afternoon after work, I right away went to fill up the car and the 3-gallon canister with gas. Last time there was a big hurricane, it took a while before the stations opened since the most pumps had been damaged and the ones able to open had massive lineups. I’ll also be putting up the rest of the shutters and start putting in the garage the BBQ and other outside items. I also went to top up our supply kit with diet coke, canned sausages & other such items. We still had some from last year, so all-in-all we are in good shape.

More later …