Damage from Hurricane Ivan
After having seen a bit of the devastation that Hurricane Ivan wrought on Grand Cayman, I can not and will not complain about what minor inconveniences I am suffering here on Little Cayman. At this writing, people on Grand Cayman are still living without running water, sewage treatment, electricity, phones, or any of the other conveniences we all take for granted. It has been reported that 90% of the homes on Grand Cayman were severely damaged...and 12,000 to 15,000 vehicles were ruined by flooding or swept out to sea. Realize, the population of Grand Cayman was only about 40,000 when Ivan hit. It is down significantly from that now, of course, because many people have fled the country (or been "asked" to leave).
Ivan passed about 90 miles to the south of Little Cayman on its way from Jamaica to Grand Cayman. That might seem like a safe buffer, but Ivan was a category 5 hurricane as it went by with sustained winds of 165 mph. Grand Cayman measured gusts of 207 mph shortly after Ivan passed by Little Cayman. Winds like that generate huge waves, and it was the wave action that did the damage to Little Cayman. Since the winds came in here from the south and east, it was the south side of the island that was the most impacted. All of the docks on the south side were destroyed and there was some serious damage a bit to the east of me. Southern Cross Club lost 4 of its guest cottages, for example, and Head of Bay was severely flooded.
Here on the southwest tip of Little Cayman the surf came all the way up to my house and actually washed underneath it. I'm 146' back from what used to be the shoreline and the ground under my house is 15' above the high tide mark. Nevertheless, the waves came all the way up to the house and some water went under the house. Since the house is on the highest part of this little ridgeline, I was spared some of the water damage that happened both east and west of me. Following are a few snapshots I took of the way things looked when I first arrived here...
This boundary marker at the east end of our property kind of tells the story. This marker was set just a couple of years ago when the owner of the lot next door subdivided his lot into two lots. This marker is the boundary between our lot and his lot, and when the marker was set that concrete ring around the PVC pipe was at ground level. It's now about 16" above ground! In other words, the wave action scoured 16" off the grade level of the beach at a distance of about 50' from the water line.
From this image you can see that the debris line was right at the back of my house. There were some fairly large logs washed up here, but without enough force to break down the PVC lattice I have around the bottom of the house.
Here's another view of the debris washed against the lattice. I am absolutely amazed that the lattice didn't break down under the force of the logs rolled up against it.
This shows the only real damage I suffered. There were some large sea grape trees in the front yard that were literally uprooted by the force of the wind. They blew over into my power line and phone line. The phone line gave immediately, but the power cable was strong enough to withstand the later force. However, the resultant stress on that cable was such that it pulled the service entry conduit over and partially broke it. The pipe in this image--the service entry conduit--is heavy 2" diameter galvanized pipe. Needless to say, it was strongly braced into the rafters and the side of the house, else the stress on the service entry cable would have pulled this pipe right through the sheathing on the roof and possibly pulled the corner off the house. As it is, I'm having a hard time right now locating a new 10' piece of 2" service entry conduit.
Note the roof on the house in the background. That is where I lived the first year I was working on my own house. That roof was replaced just last year after Hurricane Lili stripped it off! The owner is still waiting on an an insurance settlement before starting repairs.
This is why I won't be on 12 or 17m for a while. The wind was strong enough to snap the fiberglass insulator in the center driven element. Half of the DE came down to the ground...the other half can be seen in this image dangling from the element-to-mast mount. I also lost my 80m and 160m wires, one of the EWE Rx antennas, and my 30m DP. Fixing this stuff is way down the priority list, I'm afraid.
This is what happened to the gazebo on the property of my neighbor to the east. It's still standing. I'm sure he thought my towers were going to come down in the storm, and I thought his gazebo would come down. We were both wrong. However, he did lose all the nice rock walkways he had built around his house and down to the beachfront gazebo.
This is the way most of the back yard looks now. There are several inches of nice, fine sand that were left in the yard...but also lots of rocks. If I can ever get all of the rocks picked up and piled on the side, I think I'll have a very nice sand yard remaining.
Here's another shot of the junk in the back yard. Some of those rocks are heavier than I can carry, so all I can do is roll them over to the edge of the cleared area. Note how the sea grapes were stripped of their leaves by the force of the wind. They will come back, I'm sure.