Living in Grand Cayman

Its almost noon and wind is still strong, but not that strong.  I made a small video that I have uploaded to YouTube.  It will show you how much wind there is.  You cant hear it though as we are behind hurricane proof windows.  You can hear our Bird Bijou in the background though 🙂

YouTube link :

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KfhlLzIgg8

It is now morning in Cayman and Hurricane Dean has been here for a while.  The peak is expected around 10am-noon.  So far it has been very windy but not as much as expected. Also, as suprisingly, there has been very little rain, but that will probably change soon.

There are some small trees down and a debris in the roads.  A curfew was imposed last night at 10pm and is still in force so we cannot go out.  There are also reports of flooding due to the storm surge in some areas of the island.  

Its 11:30pm (12:30am EST) and we have power with the generator of the building.  Water has been turned off sinc about 1h now.  There is no rain but the wind is definately picking up as we can see the trees moving a lot and stuff blowing on the streets; Dean is obviously getting close. Forcast predict it will be here at 2am. The good news is that it will pass to the south of Grand Cayman and should (we hope) inflict a lot less damage than we first thought. The path can still change so fingers crossed. I feel sorry for the people of Jamaica though ; They will have serious damage since the eye of the storm passed right next to them.

 Julie & I will now try to sleep a bit in my office floor which is crammed with our stuff, food & water.  If the generator is still working in the morning (I doubt we will sleep much), I will put an update here.

Micho

Judging from all the emails and messages, it appears that many people are reading my blog.  Thanks for all of your messages and support.  The forecasts still say that Dean will pass south of the island.  The more south the better … lets hope it keeps going that way.  We should know more this evening.

Julie and I are now in my office and have all the we need to ride out the storm.  The house is as secure as can be ; everything is high up, electricity is off, water if off, etc.

 Below are some picutures of our neighborhood just before we left for the office.  We will try to post another update tonight when the rain starts but of course before the power goes out.

Here our neighbors house with the shutters.

Here is our other neighbors house. I am there talking on my Blackberry while they are installing a massive paneling on the garage door.   Not a very good helper am I? 🙂

Here is another house with more traditional wooden hurricane shutters.

Our house in the distance!  Lets hope its like that when we go back.

Here is a roundabout in South Sound.  As you can see the ground is higher, so people have parked their cars there in case of flooding.  It is obvious that people are taking Dean seriously.

Its sunday morning and still beautiful outside ; so strange to know that in less than 24h some massive system will roll thru here. Julie and I are now full prepared; the house is secure (see below) and only have a few odd things to do.  All our important stuff is now in my office. Other items such as our TV are high up and covered with plastic tarps.  We will also go to a neighbors place this morning to help them uninstall their large satellite dish.  Aipa, our dog, spent the night with some friends and will stay there for the hurricane ; my office permits pets but only if they are in a cage at all times.  Aipa hates here cage, so it seemed cruel to leave here in there for maybe up to 48 hours.  She is staying with a co-worker of mine who’s house did very well in the Category-5 hurricane Ivan in 2004.  Bijou, our bird, wil be coming with us since here is quite used to being in his cage 🙂

 Around noon we shall go to my office since they are expecting rain to start later today and a curfew has been imposed as of tonight. I will try to make a final update tonight before they cut off the power; they will cut it as soon as there are hurricane force winds.

Here is a picture of the windows boarded up.

The TV and other items under the tarp in case water comes in via the roof (or lack of …)

 Here is the latest forcasted path.  The multple lines are various organisations who make computer models.  They seem to all agree that the storm is moving south, a bit away from Cayman.  It is still a very dangerous storm though and we are expecting a rough ride.  We need it to go much more south than this for it to make a significant difference. Its would now pass 60 or so miles south of Grand Cayman.  At 150 miles away, I am told it would make a huge difference … lets wait and see.