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"Paradise Interrupted" - Photographer's Notes
Lord Have Mercy!!! …must have been heard over 30,000 times by The Omniscient One as survivors came out of hiding to view the damage after Ivan ravaged the tiny island of Grand Cayman on 12 September, 2004. Evidence of the power of Ivan was awesome to witness and recording it for history felt obligatory. A very nearly category 5 hurricane, it thrashed us with sustained winds near 155 mph and gusts in excess of 200 mph. The storm surge carried entire condominium complexes and homes across coastal roadways. There was at least $3 billion in damage done with over $1.5 billion claimed on insurance. Closest to the eye with it’s high winds and resultant storm surge, the south coast suffered the highest concentration of total write-offs. The thirty mile wide eye of the storm came within 21 miles of the Southwest corner of the island as it began it’s northern turn from a westerly track. The entire South Coast, East End and everything west of North Sound were inundated by high seas and storm surge as you will see in these images. According to the ECLAC Report, 83% of all housing suffered varying degrees of damage, 9,475 dwellings were severely damaged, 3,519 had partial roof loss or flooding, and over 20% of the cars were destroyed outright. If it seems I have included too many images of destruction in this book, consider that this only represents a small percentage of what I shot, and that was only a small percentage of the ruin that Ivan caused.
Ivan replaces the infamous 1932 storm as “the Big One” in every measurement but one… loss of life. Incredibly, there appears to have been only two deaths attributed to the storm. This may in large part be due to the forewarning given by modern weather technology and communications as well as modern construction techniques. In terms of wind speed, storm surge and damage done, Ivan surpasses all other storms in the occupied history of Cayman. Considered by meteorologists to be a once in one hundred years strike, Ivan will be remembered as The Big One until the dice go bad again. Bigger storms (referred to as once in five hundred years and once in ten thousand years) have hit these shores in prehistory, but I’m an optimist and am willing to take the same chance that all of us take who live in the Caribbean. The odds that it will happen so fiercely again in our lifetimes is low enough to simply address the way we build and remain prepared. Ivan will be remembered as a turning point, a pivotal moment, which in a single day changed the way we live here.
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