Living in Grand Cayman

Julie & I got back to our house in Savannah around 4pm on monday.  Once the curfew was lifted, we found a friend that was driving out to our area.  Our house is fine!  There are some broken branches but nothing else.  In area, Savannah, there is flooding though.  Just 3 streets from us there is about 3ft of water in the streets.  This was expected since it is quite low and prone to storm surge flooding. Today we are putting everything back in its place in the house and bringing things back to normal.

 There seems to be a lot of readers from all over the world who have found my blog via Google.  Thanks again for your comments and messages 🙂

Here are a few Youtube videos we shot once we left the shelter.  There are also pictures below.

Flooding in Savannah (two video’s)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVqtMWIUFdE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hUQMTTt3Ag

Strong wind and waves on the south shore of the island

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zo6XNy071I

Waves crashing into the harbour in Georgetown

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO50aikoqAM

This is a small tree outside our house.  You can clearly see where the wind came from!

The flooding just down our street.

Me, in the wind near Spotts on the south shore.

Me again in about 1.5 ft of salt water in Savannah … it gets deeper but I did not want to get my boots all wet.  Its not really as bad as it looks.  People dont have basements, so I doubt they got flooded in their homes.

CURFEW LIFTED!!!!

Dean has passed us by and was very kind to us.  We had honestly though the storm would ravage the island but a last minute turn to the south-west saved us. Since we first visited Cayman 6 months after Ivan (2004), we knew what these massive storms can do.  There are reports of some flooding and damage due to storm surge but we talked to our neighbors in Savannah and our area is fine.  The road that goes to Savannah may have some flooding, so we will soon find out.   Now we are waiting for a ride home and will come to pick up our stuff tonight.  Tomorrow we will be putting everything back into place.  Thanks everyone for your support.  I guess we will see the damage tonight and tomorrow ; ill post pictures again here soon.  

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