At 4:30 p.m. the Cayman government officially issued the all clear. They had lifted the curfew two and a half hours earlier and all electric and water is back up and running. There are still high winds buffeting the island and rain will be a fact of life for the next couple of days but the storm itself has now moved on. Our neighbor Keith drove me over to the sports complex and I retrieved our car. With the battery reattached the engine started right up and our newly named Andreas (Katie always names our cars) ran just fine. From there, I drove over to the college using the main road that runs along the southern coast. The waves were huge and people were everywhere stopping to look. The surge had obviously come in because you can see flooding all along the coast. Hirst road also had some high water points and I had to drive in the wrong lane a couple of times to avoid it as I headed up to the college. Once there I confirmed that ICCI came through just fine and headed over to Elsa's to check on her and Mr. Keith. They are both well and we agreed to resume classes on Wednesday to give everyone who evacuated time to get back to the Island.
Everyone is out now clearing debris and talking with each other. The maximum winds were 64 miles an hour here and there are downed tree's and flooding in low lying areas but I didn't see anything major even in the complexes right along the coast. The radio is reporting no deaths and only minor injuries so it seems everyone rode it out in security. There is a heavy police presence which means the lesson of all the looting post-Ivan seems to have been learned. Tomorrow will be a day to get our house back to normal, take down the plywood off the patio and clean up. I think we will leave the plywood up on the upstairs window for the next several weeks in case we have to do this again. That is the hardest piece to attach and while it means darkness in the bedroom and not the prettiest outside aesthetic it makes sense with hurricane season just now starting. long term we need to get Hurricane shutters but that could take a while with our landlord so plywood will be our option for the remainder of this season.
The cats are doing fine and we dont know how much longer we will have them though we will be asking about adoption of Dean and Nick. We are making dinner now and will have a quiet evening and an early bed time. The first really peaceful sleep in five days.
