The passage of Hurricane Paloma to the east side of Grand Cayman spared George Town and West Bay the worst of the Category 4 storm’s wrath.
However, there was serious flooding in the Windsor Park and Walkers Road areas of George Town which forced authorities to set up a road block with caution tape at some intersections, and left residents with lots of clean up work.
Dozens of residents waded through nearly waist deep water at the intersection of Templeton and Anthony Streets at 7.30am Saturday. One woman in a low profile vehicle couldn’t get to her home on the other side of the crossing.
Up to a foot of water had gotten into some homes on Washington and Kennedy streets where drains backed up causing standing water to get into homes during heavy rains. National Roads Authority crews were working on the problem Saturday morning.
All things considered, George Town residents, particularly those who had been here for Hurricane Ivan felt things could have been a lot worse.
“The water came up, but unlike Ivan, we didn’t have a surge, and this water will go down,” Anthony Street resident Ruth Gooden said.
Forecast storm surges of four to six feet for Seven Mile Beach and North West Point areas simply didn’t materialise as Paloma veered further to the northeast overnight. In the early morning hours the surf along the west side of Grand Cayman was calm.
Signs of minor damage, tree limbs down, power lines dangling and lightweight signs knocked over were evident in George Town.
“The storm wasn’t so bad actually, it was just the wind that frightened me,” Harriet Vassell said. “I was up all night looking out the window but you couldn’t see anything.”
Damage was much less in West Bay where there was merely ponding along the sides of the road along with downed power lines and tree limbs.
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