Remembering Ivan: Survival stories

The Great Escape

After making every possible preparation for the hurricane, Lindsay Wright and Robert Parr saw no reason why they should leave the comforts of their newly refurbished luxury home in Ocean Club.

Little did they know, they would be spending five hours during the height of the storm fighting waves and struggling for their lives in the bed of the only room of their home left standing.

Their neighbour Garry Bosley had only been living in Cayman for two years when he got the chance to do something he had always wanted to do – experience a hurricane.

Whatever it was, there was no doubt that if Garry and his friends had not made the decision to stay in his condo that night, Robert and Lindsay would never have survived the storm.

Lindsay: In order to look out the window, you had to stand on this sunken tub. So, I was peering out and none of the outside lights were working because there was no power. But what I could see was a mass of white and everything else was pitch black.

I knew at that point we were surrounded by ocean and there was no way out.

The next thing that happened in our apartment was that the fridge flipped over in the water.

The waves kept pounding and bringing everything in. All the furniture and everything was piling up in the kitchen, tighter and tighter.

I was still going back and forth with buckets and the next minute there was a BANG. Then my ears…you know, when you dive into a swimming pool and your ears fill up with water and you’ve got that strange sound going on? It was like that. We were underwater. The whole of the patio had exploded when this tidal wave hit and took us both underwater. It was the whole of the sea coming into the front room.

A piece of the furniture hit the back of my head…and I started to get this drifty feeling, where I was drifting off and I thought to myself, Lindsay, you can’t drift off because, if you drift off, you’re not coming back. You’re underwater love, you’ve got to keep your head awake.

When we finally got into the spare bedroom furthest away from the ocean, I couldn’t shut that door to keep the water out.

He (Robert) put the ladder up against the bedroom door and the dressing table and he said to me, “Come on, we’re going to have to put some clothes on”, because I just had on a bikini. We were like Ursula Andress and 007 coming out of the sea, you know.

Then Robert shone a torch to look into the spare wardrobe to see what we could put on and all we saw was blood and I didn’t know if it was mine or his. When we put the clothes on, Robert said, “Come on, let’s get on the bed”.

When we got on the cream-coloured sheets, which we had only had about a week, there was blood pouring everywhere.

I kept thinking to myself, we’ve got to get some help. So I said to Robert, “Have you still got the torch?” He had lost the torch off his head but still had his little doctor’s torch. He gave me that and I said, ‘There’s a guy in that house over there. Let me use the torch and let him know that we are still here”.

So, in the pitch black, I was doing Morse code with the torch. They had actually seen what I was doing, but I had no way of knowing so, just as they did on the Titanic, I just kept doing it and doing it until I couldn’t do it anymore.

The next tidal wave came in and took me underwater again, but as it took me under, there was a piece of plywood that came in on top of the waves and pressed me down, so not only was I going underwater but I had this piece of plywood on top of me which was pressing my head up against the concrete wall and it felt like my head was in a vice. There was no way I could get away from that to get above the water and that point I didn’t know if there WAS an above. As far as I knew, the water had come up to the ceiling. Then the waves receded, and pressure subsided.

Robert: Then the biggest tidal wave we were to survive came and God blew out the centre window.

When this tidal wave hit, it took us literally all the way up and hit the ceiling and, when it receded, the centre window was gone and the other two were still intact. It was like God was telling us, “Go out this window”.

Lindsay: So, I said, ‘Ok, Robert, there’s a tree. If you can grab onto it, we can make the next move”. Garry: Randy (friend staying with him) and I ran down the stairs and, right as we got to the bottom, a big wave came, and my thought was that they’d never survive it.

Robert: The wave took us up against the side of the building and then it washed us out, but thank God, the wall of the house was still there, and it stopped us.

Garry: So, when the wave passed through, Randy and I went out and they were there, hanging onto a tree between their house and ours.

Lindsay: (Around 20 minutes after being rescued by Garry) So, I went over to the window and looked down at the house and I could see the window where we had escaped from and I could see all the debris coming out – the cushions, the books and everything were coming out of the window.

Then there was this big, huge crack in the house and the next minute I saw the roof, which had just been put on, come off. It was as if a little five-year-old had a ribbon on a stick and he let the ribbon go and the ribbon just flew away. I just stood there and watched the house go. I watched the house disappear.

Hurricane in the house

Jennifer and Michael Godfrey had built and lived in their luxury home in South Sound for 20 years before Ivan blew through Cayman and demolished most of the homes in the South Sound area.

Although they evacuated their home for Hurricane Gilbert in 1988, the house sustained no damage so they thought they would be safe there while Ivan passed through.

Staying in the house during Hurricane Ivan were Michael and Jennifer, their daughter, Tina, her husband David, and their two children, Ryan and Taylor, ages 5 and 3 respectively. Also, their son, John, was there, as well as his first cousin, Anna, and the housekeeper Pat.

Jennifer: Before Hurricane Gilbert back in ’88, I had this vision of a wall of water. I told Michael about it and he believed me. Gilbert was coming and so we evacuated our home.

When Ivan was coming, I knew it was a very serious storm because it spawned off Africa and I realised how low it was in the Caribbean. We were very, very concerned but I just did not see the wall of water.

Tina: I think 7 in the morning was when our phone rang for the last time. We could see the water starting to rise a little bit and the porch started to fill up. We did not realise, at that point, that it was the ocean. We thought it was rain. We thought we’d have a little flood and some damage and then it would be gone again.

By now, we had been getting used to the sound of the wind, but I think when it began to sound really intense was when the sliding door blew off and exploded. That was about 9 o’clock in the morning.

The pressure of the water was so intense, and we all jumped up and said, “What’s that?”. That’s when we realised the hurricane was now inside the house. Now the water was rushing in and, when we looked over the balcony from upstairs with our flashlights, we could see it.

Sometimes, it was running like a river down the passageway. Other times, it was swirling, and it was just like a full hurricane inside our house.

We heard the sound of breaking wood when the furniture was breaking and the sound of crashing glass when the crystal was breaking. We could hear every crack and crash and then, we heard a big BANG and that’s when the Boston whaler from across the street came into the house.

Then we started smelling the dead ocean and the sewage smell and then we could smell gasoline mixed into that.

Jennifer: We knew now that it wasn’t just a matter of (water) rising in the house. It was a ferocious river. Everything was just swirling like it was a washing machine – our big, heavy dining table, our mahogany buffet full of Wedgewood china. Everything was just swirling and crashing and breaking.

After the hurricane it was written in the newspaper by someone that Ivan was only a Category 4. It went on to state that people, after a storm of this magnitude, tend to exaggerate. There was no exaggeration here. No exaggeration. None.

Little did we know at the time, but after Robert (the husband of Jennifer’s best friend, Judy) phoned Sunday morning from Jamaica and the phone cut off, he and my sister, against all odds, arranged a charter plane that could fly from Jamaica to Cayman, and back to Jamaica, without refuelling, to come and take the mothers and children who would be in our house.

On the Thursday before the storm, Tina’s father-in-law said to me, “You’re not staying in South Sound, there’s going to be a wall of water”. But I didn’t feel it strongly. I had not seen the vision again. But as we all know, there WAS a wall of water.

Several days after the storm had passed, I was walking along South Sound Road and talking to the Lord and I said, “Why, Lord?”. It may sound airy-fairy to some, but it was clear to me. He said, “I only have to speak once”. Compared to Ivan, Gilbert was but a puff.

Trouble on The Avenue

Mike and Mary Bowerman felt secure in their South Sound home with their family and friends.

Some even enjoyed a good night’s sleep until trouble, in the name of Hurricane Ivan, showed up in the early morning hours of Sunday, 12 Sept. 2004.

Mike, Mary and their son David, told of their ordeal a few months later.

Mike: There were 10 of us in the house – Mary, David, Mary’s mum, Miss Elizabeth, and myself. We also had myself, Liz, Jonathan and Nicky Tibbetts and their two-year-old son Isaac, and three-week-old baby Caleb. There was also our helper Jean. The Tibbetts family came fairly late on the Saturday, having only just decided they weren’t going to stay in their home in North Sound Estates.

At some point during the storm, one of the accordion shutters, which was facing east towards South Sound, blew out of the wall so we could see the level of the sea was very high – about 6 feet flowing down The Avenue.

It was daytime now but it was very difficult to see through the spray but, looking to the east, I could see a gap in the houses, which I had never noticed before and of course because of the spray and because it was difficult to see, I just thought it was my imagination that I could make out the actual main sea across the road.

David: That’s when I got scared. My heart was pounding because I saw that Mr. Lawrence Thompson’s house was totally gone. I thought, if that was the case, I couldn’t imagine what the rest of the island was like.

Mike: Not only that house was gone completely and later found in pieces across the road, along with Mr. Lawrence’s Mercedes, but, facing west of our house, almost the same distance, about 75 yards up the road, Mr. Berkeley White’s concrete house had totally and completely disappeared.

David: When we looked out of the window to the north, we could see the waves going up The Avenue but from the allotment the other side, it was just like a river coming from that direction. It was baffling. We could see whitecaps going up The Avenue but from the allotment the other side; it was just like a river coming from that direction. The waters were meeting and flowing like a river.

Mary: The water was so high we could just make out the tops of the trees.

David: At 8 o’clock in the morning, the water burst through the front door, and the door just flapped in. It just folded from the bottom up and the water just gushed in and, all of a sudden, it was just gushing in through every door. Jean, the helper, started screaming for everybody to go upstairs. She ran upstairs and everybody ran behind her. It was so loud, and everything was shaking.

David: (Later when the storm had passed) When we went out, I heard a man calling. It was our neighbour. He said that his family was up in their attic and had been in there for about nine hours.

Mike: Our neighbours had three-year-old twins, a six-year-old daughter, a grandmother and an aunt. There were seven of them up in the rafters, just on the beams, balancing with these little ones.

An angel watches over us

Barbara Levey and Ed Powers, owners of the Book Nook in Galleria Plaza and The Anchorage Centre (now called Island Plaza) had resided in South Sound for more than 20 years at the time of the storm.

Because they had five small dogs, they felt they needed to stay in their home for the hurricane instead of going to a shelter.

The following is their story of survival:

Barbara: On the Saturday night of the storm, we drove down to South Sound dock. The water was coming over the dock then, but we had no idea it was going to get as bad as it did. We woke up Sunday morning at 7 o’clock.

Although it was blowing hard, we called relatives and said, “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine”. Within an hour, the water started coming in under the side door of the house. It was rising so quickly. I told Ed that the showers were making a funny bubbling noise.

Ed: I knew right away that the septic tank had come up, but I didn’t tell her that. Once I saw that the panel of water had come right up to the French doors, I knew we were in trouble. I was scared as I knew at that point we were surrounded by ocean.

Barbara: So, he pulled down the attic stairs and helped me get up with our five dogs.

Ed: After Barbara was up there, I handed the dogs up one at a time, together with a few bottles of Evian and our important papers.

Barbara: From up in the attic, we were watching the water come up the wallpaper on the wall downstairs. It quickly got to four feet.

Ed: I was thinking, do I want to get killed by the rising water downstairs or do I want to die up here in the attic when the wind blows the roof off? The roof tiles were breaking off not only from our house, but other houses as well, and skipping across our roof. They were making the most horrible sound I have ever heard, and the wind sounded like very loud, low, deep rumbles. Then a blast would hit with percussion and the house would shake.

There were also these fast bursts that sounded like bombs or cannons going off. At that point I just felt sick inside. I was thinking to myself, I am going to die. I thought our chances of living were better if we floated on cushions rather than staying up there.

Barbara: By that time, which was about 9:30, everything was floating. The fridge was floating, and the clothes dryer had broken free and was floating through the house. The water inside the house was black, a combination of sea water and sewage.

Ed pushed the clothes dryer down in the dining room and helped me up on top of it. Then he sat on top of two tables which were stacked on top of each other. We sat like that with the five dogs up in the attic for eight hours until the water got low enough to let the dogs down.

When the dining table, which had been submerged, floated up, we climbed onto that and had a little nap.

Our cars were destroyed and our store, Book Nook, at Galleria Plaza was totalled. Other people had a lot worse than us though, so we feel very fortunate.

Someone told us the other day that there’s an angel watching over us and I said, “Yes, we’ve always believed that because of my daughter Julie, who we lost in a diving accident in 1979. It’s like she watches out for us”.

Home alone

When Merlyee Moore’s boyfriend, Melligan Solomon who worked the nightshift at CUC, left for work late Saturday evening, 11 Sept. 2004, Merlyee wondered how bad the hurricane might be as she knew she would be there in the home alone.

Having grown up in her house and weathered many storms, she never imagined it would be as bad as it was.

She told of her fight for survival, many weeks after Ivan left Bodden Town and her house in shambles.

Melligan never thought Merlyee’s life would be in danger after he left…but little did he know. The following is their story in their own words:

Merlyee: Sunday, 12 Sept. was my birthday and I spent it in a clothes closet.

When the wind started getting really bad, I knew I was going to lose the roof. I went into the front bathroom with a pillow, a comforter, a bottle of Lucozade, a little radio and my cell phone, and I lay down.

Every 10 minutes I was calling Melligan and I couldn’t get him…he was right up in the sound and the sea was right there. I thought something must’ve happened to him and I really started panicking.

Around 1 o’clock, or 1:30, I heard banging. I have a palm tree right by the front window and it was banging, banging against the house.

Then I heard the water shooting through the eaves of the house and the sheetrock started falling.

After the sheetrock started falling, my nephew called again and asked if I was ok. I said, “No, Phillip, water is coming in”. He said, “Go into the next room, Aunt Mimi”. I could hear the fear in his voice.

I went into the smaller bathroom to lie down, and the wind was humming. It was moaning, It was singing. It was so awful that I couldn’t take it in there. So, I moved out of that room and went into the smaller bathroom. I put my head down on the floor and lay there.

Then I started to feel cold and realised the water was coming up through the tub and over it. I went to lie down on the bed and saw a strip of the sheetrock, but I thought it was okay. But as soon as put my head back on the pillow, the sheetrock just flew off. It missed me by a fraction of an inch.

The wind was really bad outside. I was walking in the water in the house and the roof was gone. So, I went into the closet. I got two plastic chairs and put my head on one and my feet on the other, with pillows in the middle. I just pulled the clothes across and closed the closet door. I took my radio earphones and put them in my ears so that I couldn’t hear the wind. I couldn’t take it anymore it was so bad.

Melligan: On Sunday, about 8 o’clock at night, we tried to see if five of us could go to Bodden Town…we had to turn back because the water was so high.

On Monday morning, at 4 o’clock we were up. We had just had about a five-minute nap. Some of the guys had no sleep at all. We were going to try again. We had to detour all the way because, coming by the airport, it was like the ocean. And the homes were in such destruction that it made us wonder, if it is like this in town, what is left of Bodden Town?

The surprise that we got, you have to have a good heart to take it because you couldn’t tell it was Bodden Town.

When I came to my home and saw the ocean, I started worrying because I didn’t see NO sign of Merlyee and my heart started beating even more harder. Thank God, when I got there, there she was, and she was alive.