Home in Cayman

We flew back last night and anxiously drove home to find out how our kitties and our house did in the storm. We were very pleased to find the cats doing great and our house had no flooding. There does appear to be some water damage to our kitchen ceiling that we will need to run down and make sure it is from the storm and not a leaking pipe. There was flooding on other parts of the Island, in particular in lower valley and Bodden town. The college cleaning lady got 4 feet of water in her house. The college also sustained water damage and this morning we are going over to assess and help with clean up. The Sister Islands are in really bad shape and everyone should keep the Brackers and residents of Little Cayman in their thoughts and prayers. We had a great time with Kevin, Kristy, Kelsey and Little Scott at Universal Studios and want to thank them for such a fun weekend.

Orlando

We are in Orlando today spending time with Scott's brother Kevin, his wife Kristy and their kids, Scott and Kelsey. We drove up this morning from Miami. We have been able to find out some news from home and it sounds like Grand Cayman didn't get hit as bad as the two sister Islands. We don't have any firm news on our house and cats but the posts about Grand Harbor neighborhood seem to indicate that the flooding was limited and hopefully that means our house was spared. The big issue now for us will we get home Monday. The planes should start flying tomorrow and assuming that we don't get bumped down lists hopefully we get home Monday night. The government lets Caymanians and status holders in first followed by residents on work permit. There wasn't much time for people to evacuate so there shouldn't be a big group trying to get back. Tomorrow will be Universal Studios day so that should help us take our minds off the storm and home. Monday early we will drive back to Miami to finish up the seminar and then hopefully get our flight out.

Stuck in Florida

We arrived in Miami yesterday morning and by late afternoon discovered that Hurricane Paloma would be coming to Grand Cayman and that there was no way we can get back before the storm. We are dealing with a group of 20 very worried students but there is nothing any of us can do. This late season storm gave very little warning of rapid intensification and no warning of its path. On Tuesday it looked like it would go over Central America and even Wednesday had multiple tracks. We are just happy we put all the shutters back up just in case and unplugged all the electronics and moved the computer upstairs. Since there is nothing we can do we will head up to Orlando tomorrow to see Scott's brother and his wife and our neice and nephew. We know now the feeling of helplessness that comes with not being able to do anything about our house, our car (which is sitting at the airport long term parking lot) and most importantly our cats.

Late Season Storm

It looks like the Cayman Islands will get an unwanted visitor this weekend. The big issue is whether it will be a depression, a tropical storm or worst case a hurricane. The storm is about 227 miles south of here and is expected to move north tomorrow. We leave for Miami early tomorrow so to be safe we have put back up our hurricane shutters on the front window. If a hurricane comes it will be Saturday while we are off Island. We have someone checking on the cats to feed them over the weekend but it looks like they will have to ride this storm out on their own. There was a late season storm last year but it went well east of the Island, this ones track is not as favorable. Lets all hope it is just a depression and leaves us only rain from its visit.

Training for the Half Marathon

On December 7 (the same day as our graduation ceremony) we are running the Cayman Islands Half Marathon. Actually, walk/jogging is a more appropriate description. In preparation, we are walking most mornings and slowly building up to the 13 plus mile distance we will have to traverse. Its also not just about finishing but finishing with enough left in our tanks to go do the graduation ceremony later that day. The marathon starts at 6:00 a.m. and we are hoping to get to a pace of 16 minute miles meaning we would finish in the neighborhood of three and a half to four hours. That would give us some three hours before we had to go to graduation and five hours before the ceremony would begin. Today we did a short 4.2 km walk just as a warm up for the week. We will continue to increase our distance over the next four weeks up to about ten miles one week before the marathon then some 5k walks during the week and the full 13.1 miles on the Seventh.

We haven't gotten the tests back on Ginger so we are still waiting to hear if she will need thyroid surgery. We have moved her kitty litter onto the couch and she seems to be going in the litter so we aren't sure what to think.

This Thursday we are headed to Miami for two days of work on the seminar, then a drive up to Orlando to spend a couple of days with Scott's brother Kevin and his family. We return to the Island on Monday which is a national holiday here in the Cayman Islands for Remembrance Day. The Longhorns finally lost a game on Saturday, a gut wrenching defeat with literally one second to go in the game. They are still 8-1 and on Saturday we will have to find a sports bar in Central Florida to watch them play Baylor.

We are now back on eastern time with the end of daylight savings so even though nothing changed here, our tv shows on the weekend are now an hour later.

Cold Caribbean

The temperature has dipped into the low 70's here and the winds have picked up. Today it has not been at all unusual to see people wearing sweaters. Our blood must not have quite thinned enough because we are really enjoying it. They call them the Christmas winds and they apparently are coming early this year.

Ginger under the weather

For the past few weeks Ginger has been peeing on our couch and while we thought for a while it was behavioral, it became clear last Tuesday, when she pee'd on Katie and didnt seem to know what she was doing, that it wasnt. We took her to the Vet yesterday who initially thought it was a urinary tract infection. Last night we started Ginger on medication but a long night of throwing up later it was clear the medication was not working. This morning we took her back to the vet and a urine test showed elevated glucose leading the vet to think diabetes. They kept her for observation and blood tests. This afternoon when we went back for her we discovered that the glucose was normal in her blood but she has low phosphates which looks like thyroid problems and may mean surgery. We brought her home and have to keep a close eye on her through Monday. Her tail is very grey which is apparently a sign of the imbalance. We will be taking her back Monday for more tests and a determination of whether we need to get her thyroid surgery.

You would be correct in thinking that none of this is cheap. Just to send the bloodwork to the U.S. for further tests includes a $65 Biological shipping fee. That is before you pay the lab fee's etc. We have to get another urine sample tomorrow and poor Ginger has been looking at us with big sad eyes all day after several hours of being poked and prodded by the vet. Keep a good thought for Ginger, she is a cat but in the ten months since we got her she has become part of the family and someone we care a lot about.

We did have some time to watch the Horns and the 28-24 win over the sixth ranked Okie State Cowboys. Texas continues to make Scott's Saturday's fun and he looks forward to the weekly call to Gary to talk about the game and the Horns. It is still raining every day down here and our roads have huge sinkhole size potholes that are as big as our little car and make driving down Selkirk an adventure especially at night and in the dark. The flooded road also means you cant see the pothole because the whole street is under water. They cant fix the road until the rain stops and the water recedes. We are definitely ready for the end of rainy season.

Rainy October

Hurricane season still has six weeks left in it but things are relatively quiet. Omar was well to the East of us and most of the areas of interest haven't had tracks into the western Caribbean. While the hurricanes are giving us a wide berth that hasn't meant a slow down in rain and for the last month we have gotten more than our fill of rainy season. Selkirk drive which leads from the main road to our street is flooded and we have to drive in the middle of the road because the road is angled to have the water move left and right and our little car would flood if we stayed to the left. Yesterday we did a 7 plus k walk in the morning for our graduation banquet benefit and we both paid the price in the afternoon. Walks like that start at 6:30 a.m. because of the heat so that meant a 5:15 wake up call. Katie worked on her pottery in the afternoon while I went to a sports bar and watched college football.

Of course last night was spent watching the number one ranked Horns dominate Mizzou and move to 7-0. Texas is putting together a nice little run of wins and they are definitely making for some fun Saturdays. Since the game was the ABC national telecast I got to watch the game from home and freak out Ginger and Gypsy who had never watched football with me before. The pacing, the stressing out at every play, the inability to sit down, they got the full treatment. The other good news is that with each Texas win the season tickets I have with Gary and Ken back in Texas to the games are easier to sell and for more money. We sold Mizzou at a profit and had already broken even on the first three Texas home games. At this point it looks like we will be able to sell our remaining tickets for an overall profit and have a profit for the year even with attending the Arkansas game. So Texas' success is a financial boon as well as my personal enjoyment at watching them win.

Happy Birthday Katie

We celebrated Sunday night with dinner at Guy Harvey's Island Grill overlooking George Town Harbor. Today we have a lot of rain so we are having a restful morning reading and having waffles for breakfast (made by Scott supervised by the birthday girl). We have changed our work hours so we now work from 2:30 in the afternoon to 10:05 which means more time earlier in the day to do things like snorkel or go for bike rides and not have to rush home to get ready to go to work. Right now the rainy season is hitting us pretty heavily most days but once November rolls around it will mean the ability to do more before we have to get ready to go to work.

Katie in Dallas to work on her Masters

Katie is back in the metroplex this weekend to do a literature review for her Masters class. The libraries here on island are not sufficient to get her the material she needs so we turned in our airline miles and she has been home since Thursday. She has been staying with her sister Mel and using the library at UT Dallas. Tonight she is staying with her Mom and Stephanie and she flies back tomorrow morning early. There has been a lot of rain on Grand Cayman the last two weeks but no major storms (knock on wood). The fall quarter continues rolling along and we are now looking forward to a trip to Miami in November for the seminar and then a visit with Kevin, Kristy and the kids in Orlando.

Scott in Texas for game

I am writing this entry from Killeen, Texas where Gary and I are staying at his siter Sandy's house. We went to the Texas-Arkansas football game in Austin yesterday and while the game was great it was hot and draining being out in that weather. Later today its back to Houston and a flight home tomorrow. Next week Katie is heading home for five days. She is working on her Masters and needs to do a literature review. The libraries on the Island just arent good enough to cover what she needs so she will be going to DFW for three days of research and take the chance to catch up with family as well.

Prayers for our friends in Houston

Ike is the bad dream that wont go away, and now it is growing in size and making a dead beat for Houston. Our thoughts and prayers are with all our friends living in the potentially affected areas, be safe we are praying for you and keeping a good thought in our minds for you. Meanwhile, we encourage anyone who can to donate to the Haitian relief, over 400 people have been killed in that country in the last month by Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. Though Cayman has been very lucky our neighbors to the north have really taken a pounding and need all the help we can give.

Ike causes Scott's trip to be cancelled

The path of Ike takes it into Texas early Saturday through Austin and perhaps even as far north as DFW as a tropical storm. This has led to the postponement of the Texas-Arkansas football game and consequent postponement of Scott's trip back to Texas to see the game. His birthday present will now have to wait until the 27th when the game is scheduled to be played. Fortunately American Airlines did not charge us a change fee because of the weather so we have moved the reservation and hope nothing messes with that weekend. Hard to believe we dodged three storms down here in a week and a half and then one of them comes back to bite us in the rear.

Ike's glancing effect

Hurricane Ike is passing Grand Cayman about 160 miles to the north and this evening we are getting some high winds and rain but nothing like what could have happened if it had moved further south. The sister islands Cayman Brac and Little Cayman have been battered all day today with tropical storm force winds as they are only about 90 miles from Cuba. Our biggest worry about Ike is that it will mess up the flight plans for this weekend as I head back to Texas to see the Texas-Arkansas football game. The storm could make landfall anywhere from south Texas to Alabama on Saturday and with Houston in the center and where my flight is headed to that could cause some problems.

Today was the first day of the Fall quarter and with over 170 students attending ICCI this fall things were a little crazy. Its amazing to think that when we came here last summer the school had 89 students and now we are pushing close to our 2009 year end goal of 200 students. We should hit that goal early next year and be pushing on from there by year end 09.

Katie is fast and furious into her Masters work for Denver University. Her first on line course is a writing class and her textbooks arrived last Friday, which was good since her first assignment was due today. Over the weekend I got to watch the Texas football game on the internet as both my undergraduate colleges Texas and UTEP played. We had paid extra to get ESPN2 for the express purpose of getting to see that game and then the Caribbean feed didnt have the game. I was not happy to have to watch the game on a tiny computer screen with a very poor quality picture. I was pleased to see Texas win and UTEP put up a good fight so that both schools come out in good shape.

We dont like Ike

As we watch Hurricane Ike work across the Atlantic I came across a great article on storms that I wanted to post a link to for people to read.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080904/us_time/whydisastersaregettingworse;_ylt=AtelBRlbtfS8GgTQ0oJZjSxH2ocA

The fall quarter starts next week and next Friday I head back to Texas to catch my first Longhorn football game in person in two years. Katie has started her Masters work on line through the University of Denver and is already working on her first assignment due on the first day of class next Monday the 8th.

First Day of Football Season

With the storm moving off and with the afternoon rains letting up, last night was free to head over to the sports bar by Hurleys and watch the Texas season opener. For a few minutes it looked like they might not be getting the game since it was on a pay per view channel but at 6:00 p.m. the signal started arriving and the game came on. The 52-10 Texas win was fun to watch though the defense gave us some big plays through the air and will have to do a lot of maturing before the Oklahoma and Missouri games for Texas to have a chance. Katie came for dinner then left a few minutes into the game to "scrapbook". When I got home I found that Katie hadn't scrapbooked at all but instead had made me a first day of football present. She hung our Texas Longhorns flag in the living room and made a coconut football cake that is pictured to the left. The game was a great way to unwind after four days of intensity surrounding the hurricane.

The mood in the sports bar was very much one of feeling lucky we could be out doing what we were doing. I spoke with a couple of other football fans and we all talked about feeling fortunate we were watching a football game and that we weren't having to deal with days of no power, water or having to spend days cleaning up. The sister islands took a real beating. Little Cayman still doesn't have power or water and the Brac has substantial damage with parts of that Island still not having power. Two Royal Navy ships have arrived to help with clean up and the government is flying crews the 88 miles over to both Islands. Our prayers are going out to everyone on Little Cayman and the Brac that things get back to normal as fast as possible. We are also praying for everyone in western Cuba that they came through last night safely and to the gulf coast residents that Gustav will weaken and hit as unpopulated an area as possible.

Rainy Saturday

We are getting a lot of rain this afternoon from the back bands of Gustav. The wind is now going from south to north the reverse of yesterday. We went shopping this afternoon and there was a tremendous sense that Grand Cayman really dodged a bullet yesterday. Gustav is now a category four having gone from tropical storm to cat 4 in less than 24 hours. I will be going to sports bar tonight to watch the Texas football game assuming it isn't so rainy that the satellite feed is interfered with. On the left is a picture of Ginger watching the storm this afternoon after we opened up the permanent shutters we have on our upstairs bedroom window. While Gypsy has been fascinated by Louie following him all over the house, Ginger has been disgusted and will not give him the time of day. We are getting more rain here on the back end of the storm then we did yesterday during the highest wind activity.

Andreas Returns

We walked over to the Kings Center roundabout at 11 and were very happy to find that the cars behind us had opened an easy to get to path down the hill and off the roundabout (picture below). We plugged the battery back in and Andreas started on the first turn of the key. While walking to the car we saw a tree cut in half in the Hurleys parking lot (see picture left). We drove around and along south sound to check out the damage. We saw one downed power line and a lot of downed limbs but very little surge damage. It is still a little breezy but no rain.

Mid-Morning update

After waking up around 4:30 and then getting back to sleep around 5:15 we slept in until 8:45. A quick look outside reveals a mostly overcast morning with gusts still occurring with decreasing frequency. We should keep having those gusts until around one in the afternoon. Gustav has apparently grown to a category three this morning as it moves over the warm waters west of us. We are very fortunate he waited to grow until after passing through our Islands. We have the mountains of Jamaica and the fact that he stayed a tropical storm while passing over that Island to thank for that. In looking at our parking lot we got a surprisingly small amount of rain and didn't see any tree's or limbs down. Even the small tree next to where we park which we both thought wouldn't make it through the night is still standing. The spot where we park wasn't flooded at all and the two areas that water always accumulates even from a normal rain had pools but not huge ones. The all clear has not yet been given as of 8:00 a.m. so we wont go get our car until this afternoon at the earliest. There is apparently heavy wave action and will be for the next 24 hours with heights pushing 14-16 feet.

The Net News has the following damage reports for the three Islands:

Little Cayman A number of light poles are down. Some are described as “cracked in half.” Trees were also toppled by the hurricane. Several docks are reported destroyed. Several boats have been washed ashore. Debris clutters the roads making them difficult to pass. As the storm was approaching, a couple was treated by the nurse after being washed into the sea. They had been on a dock taking photographs. Other than these two, there are no reported injuries at this time. Damage to the Southern Cross Club has been reported.

Cayman Brac A number of light poles are reported down.

Grand Cayman During the night, an East End shelter lost generator power. A great deal of debris was washed ashore near The Edge in North Side. There are many reports coming into the NEOC of downed trees, including one that fell on a shelter warden’s car. Fallen trees blocking main roads will have priority for cleanup

Unlike Jamaica and Haiti where there are reports of deaths it appears we have escaped with just some damage to property and a few injuries. So long as Andreas made it we will have weathered this storm none the worse for wear.

Gustav moving off

I awoke this morning about 4:20 a.m. from a particularly loud gust rattling the upstairs shutters and was very pleased to find that we did not lose power or water as the storm passed. Gustav is now about 60 miles to the west northwest of us and moving away at a 12 mph clip. We continue to get tropical storm force winds and probably will for a couple of more hours. The news reports say the sister islands got winds between 80 and 100 miles an hour. It appears our winds maxed out at 55 mph and right now they are gusting in the 30-40 mph level, just a gentle Caribbean breeze right. Though it is raining now, we have actually gotten very little rainfall and it bears repeating that we were south of the storm and not in that upper right quadrant where most of the intensity would be. There has been some flooding of low lying areas including parts of Cayman Kai and North Sound Estates which is right across from the college. We also hear that the gully which runs from the southern coast up through Newlands has flooded some houses though that happens anytime there is any kind of a storm. Will find out later today if the college had any flooding and how the roof there did. Our place has had no issues at all.

The difference in sounds between our downstairs and upstairs is dramatic and has probably affected how we felt in terms of nerves and how we reacted to this storm in comparison to Dean last year. Last year we rode out the storm upstairs with no TV and no television background noise, hearing nothing except the winds gusting outside the plywood. This year we were downstairs for the most part and had the TV on pretty constantly. When we went to bed at 11 you could really hear the gusts upstairs which was in stark contrast to what we had just experienced downstairs where they were muted and drowned out by the TV.

The AP report from George Town says a curfew was never imposed and one of the local papers, the Cayman Net News, says on their web site that as of 9 p.m. last night no curfew but police were encouraging people to stay in their homes. Not that we have any intention of going outside anyway. Grand Cayman was definitely spared all but a very glancing blow and for that we are very grateful. Will know more in a couple of hours when we can go outside and walk around. There was a surge so the beaches will be full of rocks and who knows how south sound was affected as it is particularly vulnerable to surge flooding and damage. Our biggest concern now will be getting the car back and hoping that he hasn't been blocked in by other vehicles parking under us on the roundabout. That is the one bad thing about the roundabout solution to the car, you are stuck there until all the people who come after you and block you in come to get their cars. Fortunately we parked there yesterday after most of the people who would have left the Island were already gone so we should not be stuck there long. Last year after Dean cars were still on the tops of the roundabouts 4 and 5 days after the storm as people tried to get back on Island that had been evacuated.

As the storm is moving away it is gaining strength and we should all keep the people of the Isle of Pines and western Cuba in our prayers. Finally, lets also hope that the storm does not make landfall in a very populated area of the gulf coast as it moves through the Gulf of Mexico toward Louisiana and Texas. We will be thinking good thoughts and saying prayers for the parents and family of Brent the husband of Scott's sister Johanna who live in Slidell, Louisiana which is outside New Orleans.

Heading back to sleep for a while, will update later and take some pictures of the Island to let you see the aftermath.