From The Cayman Spirit, issue 8, Vol 2. (my comments appear in red)

What happened island-wide on September 12, 2004?

Wave damage in West Bay:
Onshore winds at the end of the storm produced major wave damage on the south-facing coast. This highlights the Seven Mile Beach vulnerability to westerly-driven winds.

Flood damage on West Bay Road:
Ivan's Strongest easterly winds drove surge water across West Bay Road, causing 4-5ft of flooding and widespread damage to roads and buildings. Hundreds of cars were also washed away (only to be replaced by 1000 newly imported ones :-p )

Wind damage in George Town:
Windws of 130-135mph did little structural damage; exceptions were poorly secured roofs, unreinforced masonry walls and long-span galvanized steel siding. Loss of lightweight cladding, small areas of roof damage allowed rain to enter, causing severe internal damage. Storm shutters and hurricane-strapped roofs saved many residential structures from more damage. (Judging by the chunks missing in the trim around our windows at home, I'm really glad we took matters into our own hands and boarded up all the windows with “borrowed” plywood. It seems that my cordless drill selfelessly gave it's life to spare our apartments, but sometimes that's the price that has to be paid)

Storm surge in North Sound
The saucer-like geometry of North Sound created a 6-9ft storm surge peaking in the NE winds around 5:00am. Later, as winds strengthened and swung to the east (sparing The Ranch) the surge and waves caused damage to coastal property and breaching of the island across to Seven Mile Beach (where the “Grand Cayman disapeared from radar for a few minutes” urban myth came from). Cayman Kai had only 1-3ft of surge and was protected from wave damage.

Wave damage and flooding from South Sound
A short break in the reef protection at Milford's Bay along South Sound enabled waves to break on the low-lying shoreline after winds came onshore from the SE around 11:00am. This caused excessive damage to beachfront properties and added to flood water depths inland. Further east, houses along Sea Spray Drive, another unprotected stretch, fared much better due to their higher elevation (30ft above sea level)

Double surge
Eyewitness accounts suggest two surge peaks- an early (4:00-5:00am) peak from the North Sound wind-driven surge and another at 11:00am, coinciding with the peak winds blowing onshore in the Spotts-Prospect area. The second peak was associated with heavier waves, especially in areas lacking reef protection (e.g., Mariner's Cove and Ocean Club) (click links to see pictures of each property afterward)

Storm damage to Property:
Wind damage (residential): Shingles fared better than they would in a Category 5 storm. Roof damage was highly variable within small areas, suggesting that small difference in roof installation were very important.
Wind damage (commercial): Long-span galvanized sidings and roofs are compromised in Cat2 and Cat3 storms. Poor roofs on several older “strip malls” let to total destruction. Plastic venting covers beneath balcony overhangs did badly and led to roof compromise and water ingress where it wouldn't otherwise have happened. Standing seam roofing did very well- but there was some peeling off at edges in the most exposed areas.

Main Conclusions:
Post-storm scientific analysis is vital-none of the 'quoted' maximum sustained wind speeds were verifiable

Ivan produced low to moderate Cat4 winds across western Grand Cayman and cat3 in the east. (How can you tell if nothing was verifiable?) These winds were sufficient to do major damage to a poorly prepared island (peak winds were higher in Grand Cayman than in Grenada)

Good building code and strong enforcement, plus generally good residential housing stock were main reasons for avoiding worse wind damage (as opposed to mud and thatch huts on the side of a mountain which are not only prone to FALLING THE FUCK DOWN, but also in paths of mudslides)

Wave damage was severe in areas encountering onshore winds but unprotected by shallow reefs (Thank you, Captain Obvious, but there's nothing to do to fix that other than “dont build a house on the beach that isn't protected“)

Water ingress, via rain entering through breaches in the building envelope and through salt-water flooding was the dominant damaging agent. (Water ingress through our broken window was like a fire hose, as far as volume of water coming in)

Low elevation and lack of preparedness for degree of flooding exacerbated the impact of water. (I/we were pretty prepared... as much as could be expected. Short of having a generator and a 500 gallon trailer full of fuel for it we had prepared as much as we could have been. Between John MacGyver'ing cell phone chargers out of D-cell batteries and tape, me 'acquiring' a solar charger for cell phones and having enough water and food for everyone for a week, we were as prepared as we could be) In hindsight, the only thing I would have done differently would be to find higher ground to park the car on. In Matty's case, he wouldnt be sitting behind the wheel and in front of the airbag when trying to start the car :D

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OK, so no one can agree on max sustained winds. Does it really matter? Sustained winds were anywhere from 130-135 up to 165mph and max gusts were over 200mph. It's kinda like saying “well the US has enough nuclear warheads to blow up the entire earth six times over, and the USSR has enough to do it 9 times over“ At the end of the day, the wind tore off roofs and LITERALLY decimated the hotel/condo inventory. There was something like 5500 rooms before the storm and now, six months later there are about 500 that have been fixed up, inspected and licensed by the government as “OK for guests“

Me and my boss went downtown this afternoon and grabbed some sammiches at Fort Street Market and sat on a bench under a tree and ate them. We were remarking about how a lot of the buildings downtown still had a lot of plywood instead of doors and windows and a lot of tarpaulins instead of roofs. It's only been in the last month or so that a lot of reconstruction got going in earnest.

Contractors ran around like crazy making inspections and preliminary estimates and began ordering supplies. Those supplies are still arriving and being discharged from the Port Authority. Materiel is still coming in faster than Customs can deal with it and the trucking companies can deliver it, causing huge backlogs of cargo. Now that the materiel is here, they're running around trying to do too many things at once, making an inch of progress on too many jobs rather than finish any one or two jobs. The worst part of all the reconstruction is that it's March already and we're only THREE MONTHS away from the 2005 hurricane season.

The first week or so after the storm, everyone was still stunned. After that first week everyone got galvanised into action and a lot of cleanup took place. Basically crap as consolidated into piles all over the place. The next few months saw all the little piles of consolidated crap being further consolidated into big piles of crap in a few places. Just this week was a headline in the newspaper that the three temporary dumps/landfills were being further consolidated to one area in Frank Sound.

Not very many people are going to be back to their pre-storm condition before June 1st, and that means that if we get hit by another hurricane (even one that's “only“ a Cat2 or 3) then all the weakened buildings from last year will probably fail this time. Add to that everyone's financial distress due to insurance (or lack of it) and you're going to have a lot of people who just plain won't be prepared for another emergency.