The Water Authority defended its decision to cut off water to its customers on Friday morning, about 11 hours before Hurricane Paloma came closest to Grand Cayman.
Tom van Zanten, the water company’s deputy director, said the Water Authority shut off the supply as weather conditions worsened to ensure its staff members were not placed in danger by being on roads during the hurricane.
‘It’s a staff safety issue. We always shut the water off before it becomes too dangerous for our guys to go out on the road. That is part of our normal hurricane preparations. We always let people know way ahead of time when we will shut of the water.
‘It should not have come as a surprise. We gave people plenty opportunity to store water,’ he said.
Mr. van Zanten added that water supplies were shut down to protect the Water Authority’s system and to ensure that there was a plentiful supply of clean water after the hurricane passed.
The water was shut off shortly after 11am on Friday morning. ‘That was about the time when we were told the storm force winds were hitting us,’ Mr. van Zanten said.
Water Authority staff was deployed at first light on Saturday to examine areas usually susceptible to damage during storm – South Sound and East End – and found that its equipment had not been damaged.
Customers of Consolidated Water had access to water for much of the storm, although pressure was lower than normal.
Greg McTaggart, vice president of operations for Consolidated Water in Cayman, said his company’s equipment in Grand Cayman was also not damaged in the storm.
‘We did not shut down, although our systems are configured to stop running when electrical power was lost from the mains and that occurred at West Bay plant and our Governor’s Harbour plant. Our distribution pressures were affected because of that,’ he said.
Mr. McTaggart said the company had shut down production at its plants on Friday morning as a precaution. He said there were reports from staff living in the vicinity of West Bay and Seven Mile Beach that water pressure was not affected until after midnight on Friday.
‘I think most people were able to cope with the low pressure overnight,’ he said.
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