Around 9 am this morning, July 4, 2024, Her Excellency The Governor, Mrs Jane Owen, and Premier Julianna O’Connor-Connolly updated the Cayman Islands on Hurricane Beryl and thanked everyone for their cooperation. The Premier also shared information on “All-Clear” notices.
Hurricane Beryl Update
Regarding Beryl’s movements and impacts, the Premier said:
… we’re so grateful that as the reports are coming in, they are so much less impactful than even the best forecasters signified.
We want also to acknowledge the great work of the Met team and so happy that we have the Doppler radar, and John Tibbets, a fellow Cayman Bracker also, who has that passion to make sure that we get it right. And indeed, he has gotten it right on top with all of his workers.
She added:
We want to indicate that the initial damages for Cayman Brac and Little Cayman are minimal.
There were some breaches in some parts of the road, and my team, before the sun rose, was out, sending in reports and pictures that roads had been cleaned.
There were some intermittent disruption of power service and water service.
The power service, I am reliability informed, is completely up in Cayman Brac and almost up in Little Cayman.
I also want to say that the National Emergency Operations center has given an official all clear for the sister islands.
Let me say that again. Our national emergency Operations center has now given the official all clear for the sister islands.
Explaining the “all-clear,” the Premier emphasized that as of 9 am this morning, this only applied to Cayman Brac and Little Cayman.
She added:
Grand Cayman… remains under a hurricane warning as Hurricane Beryl passed closer to the island of Grand Cayman, some 50 miles southwest of Grand Cayman.
A stay in place advisory, therefore, is still in effect per Grand Cayman.
Thanks Given To All Who Helped During Beryl
Until the all-clear is announced for Grand Cayman, the Premier acknowledged the hard work of all those involved, including the police, Cayman Brac District Commissioner Mark Tibbetts, Lydon Martin, NEOC, the Cayman Islands National Weather Service, the Department of Communications, and Radio Cayman.
In addition to Government officials, the Premier said she would “like to commend those persons who made the decision to take shelter out of [an] abundance of caution”.
She also expressed gratitude to “the shelter managers for their diligence and all the work that they did.”
Supporting the Premier’s words, the Director of Hazard Management Cayman Islands, Dani Coleman, said:
I want to thank everyone in the Cayman Islands today. It’s been a very long few hours or a few days.
It’s been a really tremendous effort. Again, teamwork makes the dreamwork really, really cohesive here in the National Emergency Operations center.
And again, at all levels, both the executive level, the strategic level and the tactical level, which is the NEOC.
So, and thank you, the public. Again, you know, it’s tremendous how everyone has really been adhering to the… rules…
Coleman added:
I really am very, very grateful to all the communicators who’ve helped get the word out there and just to everyone, [a] really great result. Could have been such a different story. And again, I think it’s been a lot of people tensed over the last few days, in particular, particular the last 12 hours.
And we really are on the other side of things here. And again, all we’re asking now is for people in Grand Cayman just to stay put while we do those assessments, the damage assessments, the debris clearance and also any medical evacuations that we need to do. And then we will give you all clear.
Additional Help From Nearby UK Ship If Needed
The Governor supported the positive comments about the handling of Hurricane Beryl operations, noting that they were “going very smoothly and very effectively.”
She added:
You know, we’ve had our emergency services, we’ve had our hospital, we’ve had all of those people looking after the infrastructure of our islands.
I know there has been some fluctuation for some of us around water and power, but people are out there trying as far as possible and it seems relatively successfully actually to restore those services. So I hope that is helpful.
And it does appear, doesn’t it, that the phones have remained online and active, which is incredibly helpful.
Thank you to everyone who’s been working really hard in this building and more widely just working through the night. There are literally, you know, hundreds of people who have been performing that service away from their friends and family. So we are really, really grateful for that.
The Governor also noted that she has “been talking to the United Kingdom overnight… talking to the ship… based in Puerto Rico”, which “is on the way here.”
Sharing details of the ship, she said:
It’s HMS Trent. It’s a British navy boat.
It has some quite useful functions and people on it, including quite a few engineers.
It will be arriving on Saturday.
So, we will be taking a decision over the next sort of 24-48 hours how we can best engage and what sort of help we might need.
But the United Kingdom stands absolutely ready to support.
We have our next executive meeting together at about 12:00 today when we should hopefully have a lot more information coming in from our crews who are out on the road.
So we will give you further updates, I think, after that.
The Governor concluded: “But for now, stay put, stay vigilant, stay informed, and that will ensure that we all continue to stay safe.”
