Ivan the Terrible

by Wendy Ledger

Friday, September 17, 2004

Ivan the Terrible was Russia's most terrifying and notorious Tsar and there is no doubt that Ivan was Cayman's most terrifying and notorious hurricane.

Early Saturday morning we knew we were in for some horrific weather, Jamaica had taken a serious pounding and flood waters were washing away what was left of people's homes there, as Ivan continued its projected path across the ocean towards the Sister Islands.

People worried for relatives and friends in Jamaica, as communication systems failed, but they were also beginning to worry about how close this hurricane would come to the Cayman Islands and there wasn't a person here who hadn't seen what Ivan had done to Grenada.

As residents made their final preparations all ears were on Radio Cayman and as the morning progressed, they began exchanging thoughts as Ivan came closer to the Islands. Which homes would hold? Where was the safest place to be? Would the storm change direction?

Information came hard and fast as the day wore on and Ivan's trajectory moved closer and closer to Grand Cayman. As it did so, the possibility of a direct hit from a hurricane category five came ever more real for the people here. By afternoon, the Island's shelters began to fill and even those who felt that their homes could keep them safe and withstand a strong hurricane began to doubt their own safety at the thought of a direct hit. As the skies grew ever more threatening and Ivan drew closer, more and more people realised the inevitable.

When HE the Governor Bruce Dinwiddy declared a State of Emergency late in the afternoon, people knew Ivan was going to hit and hit hard. Battened down in houses of all shapes and sizes, and shelters throughout the island residents crowded round their radios as the utilities shut down. As the evening drew in, the big wait began.

Cayman is no stranger to hurricanes but not since 1932 have the islands suffered a direct hit from such a major weather system.

Few people on Grand Cayman on Saturday, 11 September 2004, had any real idea of what to expect or what was about to happen over the coming 24 hours or more. The fear and anticipation of what Hurricane Ivan would bring was all too real.

With loved ones gathered around them the people of these islands endured the approach of one of the region's biggest ever hurricanes.

Radio Cayman kept listeners informed of Ivan's approach with the first reports of the hurricane's might coming from the Sister Islands who were, in the end further away from the centre of the system than had been predicted as Ivan's path moved close to Grand Cayman.

Eyewitness reports from the Sister Islands over the radio waves confirmed the worst fears of those battened down on Grand Cayman.

The tropical force winds blew all through Saturday night as one of the biggest storms in history approached one of the smallest island nations in the world. As the night wore on and the reports got more and more harrowing, the fear of what was happening behind boarded windows and battened down homes and shelters grew worse and worse.

Radio Cayman finally died in the early hours of Sunday morning after keeping residents informed and sharing the experiences of all who called in with all who listened as their location was breached by the increasing power of the hurricane as the eye drew nearer and nearer to Grand Cayman.

The silence only added to the anguish as the full force of Ivan hit Grand Cayman. Roofs were torn from homes, and even hurricane shelters, houses collapsed, the seas crashed across the island from both sides and met in the middle in several places, almost swallowing the land back to the sea. The ocean tore up roads, homes, businesses and everything in its path as the hurricane drove giant waves onto the land. Power lines crashed to the ground, debris from the seas and properties was thrown across the island at random, cars were overturned, trees were torn from the ground and the unimaginable torrent of rain that Ivan harboured continued to pour and pour for hours on the residents of Grand Cayman, streaming into homes and businesses without regard.

The noise of the hurricane as it crashed across our tiny nation, contrasted with the silence of the radio: only a single transmission of a repeated hurricane bulletin from Saturday night could be picked up as the worst of Ivan roared past Grand Cayman around 8 or 9am on Sunday 12 September.

The howling sustained winds in excess of 165 miles an hour and gusting higher, along with the torrential rain, continued to batter people, homes, businesses and property until Sunday evening, when the worst of the weather was past but the devastation had yet to be realised.

The storm began to subside as night fell on the island on Sunday, in pitch darkness residents began to emerge from their shelters and battered homes to glimpse the devastation that Grand Cayman now faces. When Radio Cayman returned to the air on Monday evening no one needed to be told that Cayman was faced with the biggest challenge anyone could imagine.

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