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Grand Cayman residents confronted wind and rising water on Tuesday, as Tropical Storm Helene brought heavy rains to the island. In low-lying areas especially, many found themselves fighting floodwater inside their homes.
A resident of Washington Boulevard in George Town told the Compass on Tuesday, “All of the bedrooms have about six inches of water in them,” as she sat among a group of people huddled near the entrance of a house.
“All our things are wet. We have pumps, going to try to get the water out, but the rain is still falling, and the level is not going down,” she said, as a car that was moving slowly through the flooded road by the house caused a wake of water into the driveway toward the front door.
Others nearby were gathered on the patio of their home, which had also been inundated.
“This is not the first time we have been flooded out,” explained one of the occupants, Eric, who only provided his first name.
“Our MP Joey Hew has tried to help in the past by bringing us some marl to help raise up the driveway, but unfortunately the water is still coming in.”
As he spoke, another resident sat on the patio, watching the cars go by as water lapped his ankles and with his possessions piled up on the couch beside him to try to keep them dry. Pumps inside the home pushed a constant stream of water out into the road.
Edward Howard, managing director of the National Roads Authority, acknowledging that flooding was a growing concern, told the Compass that the NRA was “well aware” of all the main flooding hotspots, which were exacerbated this time by the king tides.
“Because of the unusually high tides, the wells are not working as well as usual, and in several areas we have resorted to pumping using vacuum trucks,” he explained, adding, “because of this heavy rainfall event, we rented some large pumps from the private sector”.
The Compass found similar issues in flood-prone Randyke Gardens. At one of the homes there, a pump was pushing a constant stream of water out of the interior of the property into the driveway.
The residents were mopping up as best they could, but it was clear this was not the first time they had experienced an issue with flooding. Inside the house, large sections of the drywall had been cut away following previous flooding, and in some areas of the home, mould was growing on the lower parts of the walls.
In Windsor Park, near Templeton Street, water was over the threshold of the front door of one home and, across the road, water was seen inside a parked car.
Ahead of the storm, NRA crews were out clearing the drains and, from early Tuesday, they were trying to lessen any impact from flooding, Howard said.
“As we continue to develop, we are losing a lot of the natural storage areas and, in many cases, we are replacing these water-catchment areas with impermeable surfaces.”
Calling the issue with flooding “a significant challenge”, he said the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport is “working to get the storm water management committee reconstituted and also to update the storm water laws and regulations, but there is a lot of work to be done and, of course, these things take time and funding”.
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