Me and Hurricane Beryl
Well, moving to the Cayman Islands has been an adventure! The day I arrived, our area of the island was slammed with a massive thunderstorm that caused flooding! It’s currently the rainy season, so we have to plan our outings carefully to avoid getting rained out! We’ve been lucky enough to be able to head out and experience some of the fun activities on the island (I’m talking about the tasty Jerk & Wing Fest!! YUM!!), but experiencing my first ever hurricane was definitely not high on my list of “island must do’s”.
Hurricane Beryl certainly made a name for itself as it became the first ever hurricane to become a category 5 hurricane this early in the season. Cool, give it the trophy and send it on it’s way!!
We watched in shock as Beryl slammed into Grenada and Jamaica leaving serval dead and destroyed so much of each islands. I was so nervous and scared and had no idea what to expect. It’s really very different from what I am used to.
Preparation is key!
In the 24 hours leading up to Hurricane Beryl making landfall here, we watched as it shifted ever so slightly south. Each update showed the hurricane losing less spend, less wind and moving ever more south. All of a sudden, our lovely new island home was out of the hurricane cone! This would not be a direct hit. With each update, I could feel myself becoming less tense.
This was still going to be a monster of a storm, but it was starting to seem like we might be ok! Our windows were boarded up, we had lots of jugs filled with water. We had back ups of our medications, food and pet supplies (FYI, they were completing fine through the whole thing!). We moved our books and photo albums and other cherished items upstairs and off the floor incase of flooding. Being as prepared as we could be, all we could do was wait.
In Toronto, to prepare for a “massive snow storm”, I would really just make sure we had some extra food and that’s about it. I had no really idea how to prepare for a hurricane!
So this is a hurricane…
As the hurricane hit the island at approximately 1am on Thursday July 4, we were awake and watchful. The wind picked up but we didn’t see any major rain just yet. As the morning wore on and we got more daylight, it seemed we had been spared the worst!
Around 7 am we gave up on sleeping, let’s face it, I hadn’t slept at all! I opened my phone to see messages from friends and family back in Toronto, checking in. The reports out of Grand Cayman were ok, but many of our coastal areas got hit hard because of the combination of wind, rain and storm surge. I felt guilty for the profound feeling of relief that our area of the island had fared so well! Honestly, the tropical storm conditions that followed that hurricane seemed way worse!
By Thursday evening, the rain had stopped, the wind had gone back to normal and the ground was pretty much dry! While I can’t say I enjoyed my first every hurricane experience, I know how lucky I was and that it could have been so much worse!
After all the stress and anxiety of the last couple of months, then dealing with a hurricane, I gotta say, I’m capped out on stress!!
