Grand Cayman and Hurricane Ivan

[parrotheaddiver]

It's not looking good for GC. The lastest put Ivan over
GC around 2:00am. Weather guys say the wind spped is 165mph and the pressure is 914 MLB. No hurricanes since Mitch and Gilbert have had pressure this low.

http://www.crownweather.com/tropical.html

Thoughts and prayers to all the folks on GC and to the families of everyone on the island.

 

[Drew Sailbum]

Really not looking good. The 5pm NHC update has the eye passing over (whatever is left of) my apartment building.

I got out Thursday to Miami in an exodus of refugees. Once the dive shop was secured I went home, put up the hurricane shutters, booked a plane ticket with hotel and rental car, packed, and drove the 45 minutes to the airport --- all in about 2 hours.

This morning (Sat) I boarded my one-way flight from Miami back to Cayman via Atlanta. This was quite intentional knowing that I would get myself out of South Florida and "strand" myself in Atlanta. From there I got a rental car and drove to a relative's house in South Carolina where I'll wait this out.

 

[Ryan P]

No not looking good at all. Looks like the best chance is that it keeps going west and the eye stays off shore. If the north eye wall hits you have to add the forward velocity to the wind speed so you are looking at 173mph winds with higher gusts.

The bad thing is we will have a lot more information than they do. You feel very cut off in a hurricane.

http://www.caymannetnews.com/2004/09/738/gcm.shtml

There is a 10pm status report there.

 

[-hh]

5:30am (Cayman Time) update...

I've just spent some time going thru the various weather websites - since yesterday, we all know that Ivan took a "bump" off of Jamacia and veered significantly west of the pre-Jamacia paths...as of midday yesterday, Grand Cayman was the target, and Little Cayman and the Brac were forcast to get "mere" 75mph and 56mph weather respectively.

As of this morning (6:30AM EDT), eyeballing the sat IR maps makes it look to me like Ivan's not going to hit Grand Cayman dead-on, but be slanted further west. If the eye makes it ashore, it will be at 7mi beach (not further east on the island).


Some of the weather stations are down and no longer reporting data. Here's the the one that I've found to be still up. It runs on a 10 minute refresh, so don't be too impatient with it:

South Sound:
http://www.weatherincayman.com/currcndx.htm
or
http://www.weatherincayman.com/

Current conditions ten minutes ago was an ENE wind at 50mph; now its NNE at 52mph. Peak wind gust is 76mph. Barometer is 984.0*mb and falling.*


-hh

 

[wolfgirl]

Does anyone have any news about Cobalt Coast? What about Pirate's Point on LC? We're booked at both in a month...

thx--

 

[Maladryne]

Keith from Sunset House (he's relaying this info, currently off-island) says that the divestaff there are all fine. The hotel sustained damage, but the staff are in good shape; down to one cell phone that they're using sparingly to call family with periodic updates, trying to conserve battery power.

 

[Mike Veitch]

Any info on the East End? Dive Lodge and Ocean Frontiers?

 

[Maladryne]

Any info on the East End? Dive Lodge and Ocean Frontiers?

So far, I've heard virtually no reports from East End that are credible. Best source of info right now, unless you can text message someone on-island, is StormCarib.

 

[SkubaDiveChick]

Here is a link I found for detailed damage info. I'm not sure how reliable it is, but at least it's a starting point. (I don't think it's been posted yet)

http://cayman-damage.andy.net/

 

[parrotheaddiver]

Here is a link I found for detailed damage info. I'm not sure how reliable it is, but at least it's a starting point. (I don't think it's been posted yet)

http://cayman-damage.andy.net/

Thanks for the link. I am in total shock reading about the damage and seeing the pictures. I have been to GC many times and cannot believe how it looks now.

When we were on the Aggressor I have a pic at my desk of us on the ship with church st and all those buildings in the background that are reported gone. How can it be? :11:

The Sunset house was one of my favorites. Started staying there in the early 80's. My Bar what a great place to hang out and watch the sunset and the locals playing dominos great memories.