When West Bay resident Chris Lickert went to bed Monday night, he had no inkling that in a few hours he and his wife would have to grab their dog and flee their home.
In the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday morning, the Lighthouse Point Residences owners were among several residents who had to be evacuated.
“We heard it, we knew the waves were going to be big. We didn’t know it was going to ruin all the bottom units,” Lickert told the Cayman Compass Tuesday morning.
Lickert, who has been living at the residences on North West Point Road for about a year, said though he and his wife knew severe weather was coming, what happened overnight, “you can’t prepare for that”.
A large section of that road remained closed Tuesday due to the rough seas and the damage to buildings in the area.
Rough seas force evacuations
He said when the Fire Service came to get the residents around 5am, it was “crazy”.
“It’s just me, my wife and our dog. It was just a lot of chaos. The alarms were going off and people are crying because they lost their homes,” he said.
Lickert, who was carrying a bag with some belongings he retrieved Tuesday morning, said he and his wife will be staying at a hotel for the time being until the weather settles.
He said they live on the second floor, which was fine, but the ground floor homes were gutted.
Debris and broken furniture clogged entrances to the homes there.
Longtime visitor Paul Bookout said he and his wife were shaken from their slumber Tuesday morning by a loud banging, which turned out to be cars being pushed around by the rough seas at the Lighthouse Point Residences complex.
Before he had time to process what he was seeing, Bookout said water started breaching his front door.
“[In the] cracks around the door, water was coming in. So we were having to get towels and everything trying to keep the water out. Then, a couple of big surges came and we almost got about an inch or so of water in our unit coming around all through the door,” he said.
Those surges pushed a Jeep into the dive lockers on the ground floor carpark and pushed another other car over into a nearby complex.
Those surges also forced a car onto the stairs at Lighthouse Point next door.
Bookout, who lives in Tennessee and was visiting for the month, said this was the first time he had seen such a savage sea.
“In 2018, they had some stuff getting knocked around, but nothing like this,” he said.
He is not too worried about water coming inside any more as conditions will be improving, but he said he is concerned about the lack of air conditioning at his home.
The water has destroyed the outdoor units and compressors, he added.
Bookout, who is a diver, said, “I lost my BCD so I have to buy a new one. I know a lot of people lost a lot more… Divetech and Vivo, they’re wiped out. Windows busted out, flooded everything, so they’ve got a real long road for recovery for them.”
West Bay resident Chris Godet stood with his arms folded at his chest, staring at the waves as they raged across the street, near his front yard.
“All I heard was the rumbling and I came out here and I saw this disaster,” he said, as he recounted walking down his driveway Tuesday morning to survey the impact of the severe weather.
Before him lay the remnants of the outdoor deck at Tortuga and pieces of the pirate statue that adorned the entrance of the popular North West Point Road store.
As waves battered Macabuca’s outdoor deck and spilled into the roadway, residents flocked to take videos and photos.
“I never expected to see it this bad. The water usually come up sometimes [on the road], but I’ve never seen it like this,” Godet said.
He said he has lived there six years and, while he has experienced rough seas, it never crossed to his property until Tuesday.
His broken white picket fence was a stark reminder of the sea’s force.
Further up North West Point Road at Dolphin Discovery, staff were busy trying to clear debris and secure their dolphins as waves lashed the facility’s exterior walls.
Manager Marco Ortiz told the Compass that overnight, when the weather took a turn for the worse, their outdoor fixtures were destroyed; however, the animals at the facility were safe.
Two of the company’s cars were battered by the sea surges and lay across the roadway.
“We have a security guard and we have the trainers and the veterinarian were already reporting in when we saw the tides were going up,” he said.
Ortiz said they came in around 3am to take care of the facility and check that the generators to keep the pumps operating were working, and that they were not impacted by any electrical damage due to the rough weather.
Staff were busy clearing the area and feeding the dolphins when the Compass visited.
Conditions to continue
The rough sea conditions are expected to decrease overnight Tuesday into Wednesday.
A gale warning is in effect as the islands experience northwesterly winds at 25 to 30 knots with higher gusts.
A marine warning for all three Islands remains in effect and the public is reminded to exercise extreme caution.
One man was rescued at Smith Barcadere in George Town after he jumped into the rough seas.
Police have warned that anyone found removing or pulling aside police barricades will be arrested and “if you are found to be obstructing police in the execution of their duties”.
“These barricades are put in place for the safety of the general public. Do not remove them,” police reminded.
Related Videos
