That’s it.
On the third anniversary of the worst calamity in the history of the Cayman Islands, I’ve had it up to here with the hurricane whiners.
Three weeks have passed since Dean and another Category 5 hellion has threatened and still the complainers complain, mainly about Cayman Airways and the conditions at Owen Roberts airport during the evacuation.
It seems that no matter how many disaster supply lists are compiled or storm supplements published or public service announcements made, some people just don’t get it. In a crisis, things won’t work as they normally do. It’s pretty self-evident to most, but not to the hurricane whiners.
To the hurricane whiners anything (including acts of God) that upsets their comfortable existence is loathsome and clearly some lazy proletarian or incompetent official or greedy executive has to be to blame.
The hurricane whiners are the same nebbish twits who have no responsibility in a crisis other than looking after for their own inconsequential hides and expect those who are helping others to make their extremely taxing headlong skedaddle as luxurious as possible. The same nincompoops haven’t a clue regarding their own personal emergency preparations but can indict in florid detail those dedicated professionals who make it their business to preserve these morons when it comes to life and death.
Not that I don’t wish to see these noisome boobs bug out. As a matter of fact their flight is a rather welcome but all too brief reprieve from crossing paths with the shrill fools who, in the not so distant past when natural selection still applied, would have been an easy mark for your run of the mill Sabre Toothed Tiger with below average hunting skills.
It’s said any aircraft landing one can walk away from is a good landing and any emergency evacuation in which one has in fact been extricated from harm’s way is a good evacuation regardless of how much more it cost than the quoted Priceline.com fare. If you didn’t dangle from the skid of the last chopper out or share a frigid wheel well with your terrified family, count your blessings.
It’s obvious it never entered the hurricane whiners’ minds that the harried and exhausted Cayman Airways staff who had worked much longer than the whiners had stood in queue griping but otherwise doing nothing useful, wouldn’t be embarking on the last charter. Their only concern upon arriving in MIA safe and sound was the crimp the additional airfare put in their Sawgrass Mills shopping spree cash wad.
If they did stay and ride it out, perhaps the ignominy of making No. 2 in a Hefty bag would do these nitwits some good when they realise that in fact their doody is as aromatic as that of the rest of us.
Forgive me if I seem a tad testy; two Cat 5’s in two weeks will do that to a person. Perhaps it’s better to be constructive rather than critical. So to that end, here’s a modified preparedness list that the hurricane whiners may understand.
1) Before the roof starts coming off, put some water aside in jugs and buckets. Why? Because the piped water may actually go off. Yes, that’s right; water may not magically flow from the tap so you’ll need to have some already put aside for things like drinking and going potty.
2) Have some way to light your living room other than cranking up on the recessed lighting dimmer. Why? Well because the electricity may go out also. No kidding, the plasma screen won’t work, the complex and unfamiliar operation of opening a window will have to be mastered and the left-over foie gras in the fridge will go putrid.
3) All sorts of other things may be disrupted too. For instance, you may have to reschedule your hot rock massage at Rain due to torrential rain short circuiting the rock warmer, your Pilates class at World Gym may be cancelled because the mats are sopping with feculent storm surge sludge from the George Town dump, Grand Old House may not be able to seat you on the deck since the deck is halfway to Honduras, and the looted Jacques Scott store may not have Opus One in stock because it’s been looted.
4) If you do decide to evacuate, take your own provisions to the airport as the selfless souls handing out colouring books to the kids and free bottled water may not have your particular brand of Evian. And do expect to wait a long, long time for an unscheduled evacuation flight. This will be due to the hoard of other refugees equally desperate to flee the impending catastrophe.
If you whiners don’t quite grasp any of the above, do us a favour, please just shut your pie holes and save it for something truly dire, or at least send your whining letters to someone who gives a damn. We Ivan survivors don’t.
Gregory S. McTaggart
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