Caribbean Princess Webcam - Grand Cayman Relief Effort?

[Aloha_Jackie]

I am so proud of Princess! Looking forward to seeing Cayman well on our visit 12/2005! Best wishes to all! An incredible effort! $50K plus, fuel and manhours and HOPE! Love it!

[Flacrusrs]

What an incredible thing to do, we can all be proud to be part of the Princess family. Brought tears to my eyes.

[Brac Gypsy]

Cayman Islands wish to say thinks to Caribbean Princess

I live on Cayman Brac, Cayman Islands, and I wish thank each and every person who has contributed to the relief supply's for Grand Cayman. We here on Cayman Brac are all ok at this time. We here on the Brac have now nearly doubled our population with in this past week with people from Grand Cayman who has either lost their homes or roofs from the devastation caused there, and here by Ivan. We are very thankful, and I say this for each and every person living in these beautiful islands.

 

My special thanks are for the hard working people on the Caribbean Princess. To have unloaded 150 tons by hand had to have been a job and a half. Also for all the hard working people to make all this possible. Our hearts go out with many thanks. I can never say thank you enough times.

 

The picture that is attached shows how far the waves from the storm serge came in.

 

I wrote a story after the devastation of Ivan and posted it on a site called: http://stormcarib.com/reports/2004/cayman.shtml

I wish now to post it here on this site for all to see. Some of you may have already read it, but for those of you that haven't, here is my story. Again, many thanks to all.

*************

"ALL IS WELL ON CAYMAN BRAC"

 

The perception perpetuated by the media is that the entirety of the

Cayman Islands has been devastated by hurricane Ivan. That is simply

inaccurate and very irresponsible reporting! The country consists of

THREE islands. It is the main island of Grand Cayman that was directly

hit by Ivan and which suffered widespread devastation and is in

relative chaos.

 

However, approximately 90 miles to the east-northeast

lies the other two Cayman Islands: Cayman Brac and Little Cayman. The

island of Cayman Brac has suffered no, I repeat, NO catastrophic

damage and very little damage in general to speak of. Ivan missed us

far enough to spare us from catastrophe. I hear that Little Cayman is

equally unscathed and hope that is true. It is Wednesday evening and

Ivan has not long passed us and Cuba. Ivan is heading for the Gulf

Coast of the U.S. and all is quiet now. I am sitting very comfortably

in my home on the island of Cayman Brac, the second largest and

easternmost of the three islands as I write this. I, and my fellow

Brackers, have access to fresh water from our local and fully

operational Water Authority desal plant; we have power, we have

telephone service and even my 528K ADSL broadband Internet connection

is back up, as is my Cable and Wireless cellular telephone service.

The stores here are all open, the airport is accepting aircraft and

the cargo dock is ready for supply ships that are soon to arrive. The

schools are open.

 

The hospital and fire services are all operating as

normal. The police service reports no incidents, and law, order,

security and serenity prevail. Ironically, our little island, which is

about 12 miles long and 1.5 miles across, has become a haven for

people coming from the havoc of Ivan-torn Grand Cayman.

My home is approximately 120 feet from the sea and about 13 feet above

sea level. My family and I comfortably rode out the storm here and had

a very good night's sleep as 90 mph peak winds howled. We were without

power in the height of the storm because the utility service shut off

power to their lines to minimize damage to their transmission system

in the event of downed lines. However, there were no power poles down

and no power transmission lines downed that I could see on my

all-island drive yesterday and power was back on a few hours after the

worst winds past us. A handful of the "drop lines" - both electrical

and telephone - from the utility poles to the buildings were pulled

away from a few buildings, but Cayman Brac Power and Light are

restoring them even as I write. During the storm we even had telephone

service. It was not until Grand Cayman got hit that our international

telephone and Internet service was disrupted, but was quickly

restored, much to the credit of Cable and Wireless Ltd.

 

Virtually 100% of the homes and buildings here are completely intact

with no damage whatever. The brunt of the hurricane's force was aimed

at the sparsely populated South side of the island. Some of the houses

on the South coast which are very near the shoreline or very low to

the sea had some sea water wash in, but I neither witnessed nor have I

heard of any structural damage. The worst damage was to a small

bar/restaurant and adjacent cottages overlooking the sea on the South

coast. The sea gutted the bar as it was situated DIRECTLY on the edge

of water. The adjacent cottages were on very low lying land, extremely

close to the sea, and were of less than robust construction. Even in

summer wind squalls the sea will break over the low seawall behind the

bar and occasionally wet bar patrons, so it was not any surprise that

it was destroyed in Ivan. That is quite unfortunate, as it was a

favorite "watering hole" for many locals and visitors alike. There are

also reports that some of the dive boats and private craft that fled

from Cayman Brac to Crand Cayman as Ivan bore down suffered damage.

Plans to repair or replace the damaged dive boats are already under

way.

 

A couple of the boat docks situated inside the reef on the South side

of the island of Cayman Brac were either washed away or damaged.

However, they were of simple wood construction and it was expected

that they would probably suffer damage just as some of them did in

other forceful hurricanes in the past. The lumber and debris and

litter from the docks strewn over the shoreline makes things look grim

indeed, but the rubbish will be removed and the docks will be rebuilt

in short order and things will be back to normal on Cayman Brac. I am

so sorry and so sad that the same cannot be said for our big sister,

Grand Cayman.

 

It was a beautiful day here on the Brac. As the sun sets here I sit

and reflect on how blessed we were to have missed the ravages of Ivan

the Terrible. All the Brac people I know consider ourselves fortunate

to live here and are supremely thankful we escaped Ivan's wrath. We

here on Cayman Brac count our blessings and keep our fellow islanders

on Grand Cayman in our thoughts and prayers. They have been through

Hell and back and have much hardship yet to face. Some people from

Cayman Brac are flying to Grand Cayman to help in the emergency relief

effort, and many here are gathering up clothing and other supplies to

donate to the huge need on Grand Cayman.

 

Since our little Island depends so much on tourism it compounds our

distress over Grand Cayman's plight to read and hear all the headlines

indicating that the entire country is a wasteland. It is equally

unfortunate that thus far the only pictures that I have seen posted on

the net are of areas of extremely localized damaged in and around the

bar I mentioned earlier. The myth that the entire country is

devastated could severely and negatively impact Cayman Brac's tourism

industry, especially for the coming winter season as people are making

vacation booking decisions now. While not minimizing the horrible

plight of Grand Cayman, the truth needs to be proclaimed that Cayman

Brac - thank God - faired Ivan well and is just fine, and is still

beautiful as ever. Cayman Brac stands ready to welcome those wishing

to visit here as soon as airline flight services and reservation

services for local resorts normalize.

 

It is reported that a representative from the Department of Tourism in

Grand Cayman has flown in and is in the process of fleshing plans to

ensure that the destruction Ivan visited on Grand Cayman will not

compound itself here on the Sister Islands and negatively impact our

tourism industry due to association of Grand Caymans damage with the

Sister Islands. It is thought by some here that the Sister Islands

will be an alternative destination to those who are planning vacations

on Grand Cayman and who are now facing cancellation of their plans due

to Ivan. According to the manager of the Brac Reef resort here on

Cayman Brac, they are making due preparation and will be quite ready

for the upcoming tourism high season.

 

The Brac Gypsy.

Linda K.

[sue d. miller]

Thank you Linda, for all the information!! Thank God you were all spared. Our prayers are with all in Grand Cayman, and all that were moved to your islands. May god speed to all, that their lives may begin to some sense of normalcy soon. God bless Princess, and you as well!! :)

[auntieann]

Brac Gypsy,

 

Hope you don't mind....I pasted your message and sent it to Princess. I also called them earlier in the day to give them my thanks.

[Brac Gypsy]

Thanks you for your prayers Sue. All is much needed at this time. There is another site in which a list of missing people on Grand Cayman that have been added. There are also a list of the found people. http://stormcarib.com/reports/2004/cayman_missing.shtml There are now a little over 700 people who are still missing in G/Cayman. A lot of the world does not know of this, because of the poor media coverage here. They are NOT presumed dead yet. the list of missing was a lot larger, but with the help of the site "StormCarib" lot's have been found and now posted on the "FOUND bulletin board". What news media we have here in the Islands is only one Newspaper and that comes out of Grand Cayman, and the Internet. The Internet is touch and go with some truth and some a bit out there in many ways. So it is very hard to say what is truth and what is not so true.

 

There is progress, and things are slowly getting back to normal on the Big Island. The British War Ships were in port in G/Cayman for around 3 days with as much relief supply's has it had left. After all, they had just unloaded a tons of supply's in Jamaica and Granada, again due to Ivan. So there wasn't a lot of supply's left by the time they reached Grand Cayman. The land lines on Grand Cayman are still not in service, and the island is still without power. WE here on the Brac lost our land line phones for just the first two days after the devastation.

 

Some C&W cell phone are working, that is if the people can keep their batterers charged. One of our police friends from Grand Cayman called on one of his friends cell phones to let us know he was ok. He said a lot of peoples cell phones got wet when the waves and water rushed in. I would imagine the minds were set on saving their selves and not their cell phones at that moment. Our friend said the reason his phone got wet was because he dove in the high rising water to save a woman who had fallen from the back of the dump truck that they had taken out to rescue stranded people . He said she couldn't swim so she put up a nice fight with him in the water before he could get her back up in the dump truck. I know a lot of stories but it would take me way to long to write them all down. So before I get another book written I will close out here so you can take a breath. Our thanks goes out to all.

God bless each and everyone.

 

Brac Gypsy.

[Brac Gypsy]

Thank you Ann. That was very kind of you. I just opened a membership on this site today so I am still learning my way around.

 

Brac Gypsy

[cruise182]

 

That's Awesome!!!!

[katisdale]

Thank you for letting us know what is happening. Also kudos to Princess for helping with the relief effort.

[auntieann]

Brac Gypsy,

 

Welcome to the Princess Cruise Critic Board. You might also want to post on the Cayman Island board. They would love to hear from you and all of your knowledge.

 

 

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?f=147

[teach223]

My husband and I have always thought Princess was the best. Now we know it is the best! We have always found the crew members on Princess ships to be most considerate and helpful and this effort on their part for the people of Grand Cayman certainly reaffirms our belief. We will sail on the Caribbean Princess in November and we will extend our heartfelt thanks to them personally on a job well done. Perhaps, with all the turmoil in the world today, we will become a more compassionate people and instead of complaining and whining about everything we will stop and be grateful for all the things we have. We can all take a lesson from the crew and help others more. Just wish I could have been on board to watch their work and give them a pat on the back for a job well done!

Hats off to the Caribbean Princess crew and Princess Cruises!

[daWoods]

Just when you get a little long in the tooth and go for long periods of time seeing giant corporations serving only themselves, along comes a story like this. Princess...good on 'ya!

[Kay D]

Great Effort by Princess -- always a Class Company!!!

 

Wonder how long it took to unload the supplies & transport to shore... I watched the webcam for a while today but never saw anything that looked like tenders between ship & shore. Did anyone else notice that? Since it updates every minute, I thought for sure I could see some of the tenders. Or did the tenders end up going to a different spot to unload? Hope it went smoothly!!

 

Now I think each cruise line should be doing what Princess did today -- and Princess should do it again next week too!!

 

I posted the story about Princess doing this, the link to this thread, the link to the webcam and link to cruisenewsdaily on the stormcarib website's main page and on "pleas for help - Cayman Islands - relief efforts" section. Some who have read of this generosity commented that if they cruise it would only be on Princess!!

 

It was suggested on stormcarib that Carnival Corp should send one of its older ships down to Georgetown for temporary housing for some of the storm victims!

[sue d. miller]

I watched the cam for quite a while yesterday, and the tenders were returning to the ship from the lower right hand side of the cam!! I saw three. :)