Little Cayman recovers after a beating from Rafael

Little Cayman returns to normal after going into a quick recovery mode The direct hit of Hurricane Rafael last week.

By the weekend, roads had been largely cleared of fallen power poles and wires, trees, sand and other debris, while power had been restored to much of the island.

Any visitors or residents of the island who wanted to evacuate were transported off the island after Cayman Airways took passengers to Cayman Brac and on to Grand Cayman on Thursday and Friday.

Danielle Coleman, director of Hazard Management Cayman Islands, who was on site in Little Cayman on Thursday to determine the extent of the coming recovery, told the Compass, “Damage assessments and debris clearance operations are underway and one of the biggest things today was the evacuation flights; to get all the people off the island.”

On Tuesday, 112 tourists rode out the hurricane and became stranded on the island the next day, as torrential rains forced the closure of the runways, leaving hotels scrambling and improvising to feed and house the visitors who could finally to leave. Evacuation flights from Thursday.

Assessing and repairing the damage

The high winds and sea surge caused by the hurricane, which made landfall on the southwest side of the island around 9 p.m. Tuesday, damaged sand submarines, damaged docks, tore the roofs of at least two buildings and caused varying levels of damage to several properties . , including some hotels.

The steeple blew off the Baptist Church and some of the siding came loose on the Little Cayman Museum building.

However, all government buildings, including the post office, the Public Works Department building and the district administration, held without significant consequences.

District Officer Tate McFarlane said he was working with a front-end loader clearing roads from 7:15 a.m. Thursday.

He said on Thursday afternoon: “There are now only a handful of visitors left at Edward Bodden Airfield. Power is slowly being restored, although the sound of generators is still widespread. The telephone lines are difficult and nine out of ten calls are currently not going through.”

He thanked the Public Works Department, the Cayman Islands Regiment and all residents for their hard work in helping the island recover.

Speaking about some of the damage he experienced after the storm, McFarlane said: “I had to push the roof of the house known as the Rock House out of the road on the south coast.”

At the time, he said, “there were still many trees and poles down, and the road was still blocked heading east from Head o’ Bay towards Kingston Bight Lodge”.

At this location, he said, another roof was blown off a building and the dock at the lodge was also damaged during the storm.

McFarlane noted that there was major flooding in the ponds on the northeast side of the island.

“There are large areas where the pond still completely covers the road,” he said.

The shop on the Village Square reopened on Thursday, giving residents hope – and supplies – again.

And while there were no restaurants or ATMs on Friday, technicians from FLOW, CUC and Island Energy were on site, all racing to restore connectivity.

“Two more trucks are coming on board tonight and that will give us the boost we need,” a tired but confident-looking Raymond Walton of Island Energy said on Friday.

Beside him was Jerry Holness, who led the CUC team that supported Island Energy in the restoration work.

“There is a lot of work to be done, but we hope to have most of the power restored to the entire island within a week,” Holness said.

FLOW’s Eugene Thompson said Friday that the utility and communications providers are working together and that two factors in particular are working in their favor.

“Unlike Cayman Brac, where the poles broke during Hurricane Paloma because they were buried in the rocks, here most of the poles were planted in the sand and they are still going strong. They just lean over and we can push them back up,” he said.

He added that after a hurricane, people often damage and break power lines during cleanup efforts. “Here in Little Cayman we have been able to protect them; we are carefully moving the cables from the street to the side of the road so that the recovery process will be much faster,” he said.

Thompson said he worked until 3 a.m. Friday installing a cabinet to bring internet back to the capital and the Blossom Village area.

“I’ve never heard it so quiet in my life,” he said, adding that there wasn’t a single car, not a bird, not even a mosquito or a ‘no-see-um’; “It was completely silent and very dark.”

Official research visit

On Friday around 7:30 am the newly minted Deputy Prime MinisterKenneth Bryan, who is also the Minister of Tourism, arrived on a flight from Grand Cayman, accompanied by the Ministry of Tourism’s chief official, Stran Bodden.

“We’re here to listen to people and find out what we can do to help,” Bryan said. “Tourism is the lifeblood of Little Cayman, so we want to support them and get them back up and running as quickly as possible.”

Oldest building on island damaged

Bodden has strong family ties to Little Cayman, with many of his relatives born on the small island and working there all their lives. On their tour of Blossom Village, he and Bryan passed by the oldest surviving house on Little Cayman, which was built in 1908.

Outside, part of the historic building’s roof was missing after being blown away by the storm, while inside, owner Penny Cumber was sweeping sand and cleaning up with her daughter Juliet.

“The roof needs to be repaired and the floor is tied in places, but we’re going to get the property repaired,” said Cumber, pointing to a support beam that she believes came from an old shipwreck.

“I love this old building. It’s part of the character of Little Cayman, along with the beautiful old McCoy House across from my house, and we’re going to make sure it’s brought back from this hurricane, and we’re going to make sure it’s carefully restored,” she said. , adding that the McCoy house appears to have survived without damage.

Bryan also stopped at Little Cayman Beach Resort on Friday, where resort manager Michael Ann Boyer told them that a crew from Harbor House Marina on Grand Cayman was on its way that night to patch a four-foot hole in the side of the ‘ Paradise Diver’ dive. boat and refloat it, along with another of their boats, the ‘Holiday Diver’, which had also sunk in the hurricane.

“Once they close the gap and get both boats refloated, they are going to take them in tow and take them back to Grand Cayman for repairs,” she explained.

Guests are already returning to the island

The resort was a hive of activity Friday morning, with staff removing plywood shutters, clearing sand from the pool and hot tub and replacing dockside planks that had been pulled out in anticipation of the hurricane.

“We have 21 guests arriving tomorrow,” Boyer explained, to the surprise of the visiting officials.

In response to a question from Bryan, she added, “The guests have been told we are in hurricane recovery mode, so they are coming in with their eyes wide open. They know what they’re dealing with here in Little Cayman, but they all wanted to come anyway.”

She confirmed that the restaurant and bar would remain closed to outside guests.

When asked what he could do to help, Boyer said the utilities were already working as quickly as possible, but “we need clean and consistent power for the reverse osmosis plant. Without that we cannot run the plant and produce water and a number of other properties, such as Conch Club, also depend on our plant for water.”

Damage at Southern Cross Club

The only other reverse osmosis facility on the island is at the Southern Cross Club, which suffered more damage than the Little Cayman Beach Resort.

When the Compass When she visited the site, manager Jennifer Mills was busy meeting with a surveyor to check the damage in each of the rooms. Another staff member told us that no date had been set for reopening.

“Some of the rooms suffered some damage and the middle part of the dock broke off,” explained one of the divemasters, who was busy securing a large part of the dock, which was now in the sea, from flooding. gone and lost.

Trees had fallen in other parts of the site and large amounts of sand had accumulated near the swimming pool and gazebo.

Further along the coast, the Southern Cross boat, Lucky Lady, was high and dry on the beach, and it was not clear when it could be disembarked.

“When the boat broke loose, it appears that it ended up on top of Mr. Dan Scott’s dock, and the hull and propeller damaged a large number of planks,” explained Jack McLean, who flew to Little Cayman to investigate the assess damage. damage to the dock.

“Mr. Scott asked me to tell Southern Cross staff to stay off his property at this time and leave the boat where it is until it can be determined who is responsible for the damage,” McLean added.

The recovery process on Little Cayman appears to be going well.

On Friday, volunteers helped clean up the Southern Cross Club.

“We are doing our best to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible,” said a volunteer. “We love Little Cayman.”

Regimental assistance

Members of the Cayman Islands Regiment were deployed to Little Cayman to assist with recovery efforts.

Lieutenant Cassandra Jocson of the Cayman Islands Regiment, speaking about the tourist evacuation, said: “We supported Cayman Airways in several areas, from baggage handling to managing crowd control. In addition, Peter Quilliam from the Little Cayman (Community Emergency Response Team) team had two of my team members assist with chainsaw operations.”

She added: “This is our first deployment to the Sister Islands, and it has been a pleasure getting to know the local community and partner organisations. As I said, we would like to provide even more support for future implementations.”

As she left, she noted that “many people were sad to hear that CERT leader Quilliam would be returning to his home country of New Zealand,” but she wished him well in the next chapter. She said from her brief deployment to Little Cayman, she knew many people in the community would miss him, especially the Little Cayman CERT team.

MP for Cayman Brac West and Little Cayman Moses Kirkconnell said of Hurricane Rafael’s death, “We are grateful that Little Cayman did not lose any life.”

He added: “The priority now is to get the infrastructure back in place… everyone is working together towards this goal. In the near future, the government and community can work on a strategy to further harden the island against future hurricanes.”