Bruce, N6NT, who gave a lecture on building a house on Little Cayman island himself, including a ham shack, doesn’t yet know if his house survived hurricane Ivan, but here is his initial report.

Quite a few people have written to ask how my house made out in the storm, so I thought I’d pass out what news I have. And that’s almost nothing!

It’s not true that Little Cayman missed the storm. The storm track went from east to west right along the south of the island, about 60 miles away. That might seem like a safe distance, but the winds at that time were 165 mph and extended outwards from the eye by 90 miles. The National Hurricane Center had forecast the storm track first east of Cayman Brac (east of
Little Cayman by 5 miles), then later placed the track right through little Cayman. All the while, their “Discussions” said that most of the hurricane
models were predicting a path well to the west of what they were officially
forecasting. It’s almost as if they were reluctant to say something that
might cause the people in FL to let their guard down. But whatever…it was
enough that the government forced a mandatory evacuation of all the people on Little Cayman over to Grand Cayman. And as it turned out, that put them
right into the path of the storm. Now Grand Cayman is under several feet of water, all communications are knocked out, and nobody can move anywhere. Grand Cayman is a real disaster area, though little news has come out as yet
because there is no communications with the island. The Royal Navy has
dispatched HMS Richmond, due to arrive there today in order to begin relief efforts. (The latest news about the Caymans.)

However, one of the firemen on Little Cayman did stay behind and sought refuge in the island’s hurricane shelter. Yesterday during a brief lull he took the fire truck out for a quick damage tour around part of the island
and was then able to get his report out via cell phone. Since my house is not visible from the street, he was not able to see if it is still there or not. But I do know that one big house about 1/4 mile west of me is not still there and that the 3 buildings immediately to the west of me were
severely damaged.

At this point, I don’t know what’s left there nor how long it will be before I can get a damage report. My plan had been to arrive on Little Cayman October 20 for the winter, but that may be advanced significantly if there is any benefit to be had from doing emergency repairs. Or it may not happen at all if there’s no house left. I simply don’t know yet.

Bruce, N6NT/ZF2NT