While adverse weather conditions brought on by Hurricane Wilma, have effectively stopped goods coming into Cayman, consumers will need to exercise patience as supermarkets run low and out of certain commodities.
Waves batter the port in George Town. Photo: Alan Markoff |
Already some supermarkets have run out of milk and fresh produce.
From the middle of last week seas were rough and yesterday (Monday) waves were still breaking on to the port in George Town. And with a forecast for a cold front to enter the Cayman area today the outlook for resuming of full cargo services could be this Thursday or Friday, said Port Authority’s Port Facility Security Officer Joseph Woods.
‘We’re looking at Thursday or Friday for the weather to clear up, probably,’ said Mr. Woods.
However, now is a very good time to collect cargo from the warehouse, the public is being advised.
‘If you have cargo it’s a good time to collect it because when cargo can come back in again we’ll have a lot to unload. There are a lot of ships waiting to unload,’ said Mr. Woods. The warehouse is open normal hours (8.30am to 5pm Monday to Friday with a half day on Saturday).
Port Director Paul Hurlston was in a meeting Monday to determine when the port would re-open to ships, which would probably be near the weekend.
The cruise ship business is scheduled to start back next Monday.
Although as of yesterday the Port Authority had not had time to inspect the extent of damage, it did not anticipate that it was great.
According to Mr. Woods, damage was done to asphalt pavement on the dock and two doors on the South terminal, along with shingles on the cabanas.
Testing was to begin on equipment at the port yesterday to determine if damage had been done to it.
Meanwhile supermarkets are running low on certain stock. As of yesterday Hurley’s Marketplace in Red Bay and Foster’s Food Fair in George Town, had run out of milk and fresh produce, such as lettuce, tomatoes and bananas. Hurley’s was running low on chicken while Foster’s was low on apples.
Kirk Supermarket on Eastern Avenue still had a small amount of milk Monday, along with tomatoes and lettuce, but will run out if it doesn’t get its weekly delivery in by this coming Thursday.
Foster’s was to fly in some milk yesterday or today while Hurley’s and Kirk’s were also considering flying in some goods.
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