Premier urges public to prepare for busy storm season

| 01/06/2022 | 30 Comments
Atlantic 2-day weather outlook (see full graphic on the NOAA website)

(CNS): Government will do all it can to help the country get through any storms during the next six months or more, Premier Wayne Panton has said in a message marking the start of the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season. But he urged everyone to ensure they have a plan and said families need to stock up now ahead of what is forecast to be a busy season. This year is the seventh in a row where we can expect an above-average number of storms and hurricanes, which is becoming the new normal.

“More frequent and intense storms are one result of increased global temperatures that is particularly relevant to our country,” Panton said. “Being prepared is one of the most important things we can do as individuals, as families, businesses and communities to minimise the impacts of severe weather events. If you haven’t already done so, stock up on your hurricane supplies and make sure you have hurricane plans for your homes, businesses and your families.”

The long-term and seasonal charts call for another busy year for storms across the Caribbean and the Atlantic Basin, with as many as 21 storms. The Cayman Islands has been building more resilience into its warning systems over the years, including the new National Emergency Notification System mobile application that allows direct communication with all subscribed users here in the event of a national emergency or a disaster.

“Building a national culture of disaster preparedness and resiliency is a collective responsibility and I encourage all Cayman Islands residents to subscribe to the mobile alert app,” Panton said, as he urged people to monitor official sources on local radio or television and to watch the development or arrival of any potential storms in our area.

On Wednesday morning, as the season officially got underway, the National Hurricane Center in Miami was watching an area of disorganised showers and thunderstorms located over the northwestern Caribbean Sea and Yucatan Peninsula. Forecasters say it is likely to become a tropical depression while it moves northeastward over the northwestern Caribbean Sea over the next few days.

Regardless of the development of this storm, forecasters say that heavy rainfall is likely across our area for the next few days.

See Panton’s full Hurricane Season message below:


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Category: Science & Nature, Weather

Comments (30)

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  1. Anonymous says:

    Is there a web site that we can go to to get up to date local forecasts. Try to find one for today

  2. Anonymous says:

    we had storms last year…no chance of us getting hit again this year.

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  3. Anonymous says:

    When on approaching hurricane statements are issued to evacuate which are silent on where and how, I always wonder are they idiots?
    In Florida for example there is only one or two major highways North, and when the entire Florida gets into their cars and heads North what do you think will happen if the State is not prepared? If there are no portable toilets along the way, if there are no petrol trucks to refuel cars every few miles, if there are no emergency medical teams along the way, if there are no emergency mechanics to change tires or provide basic repairs? I mean this is COMMON SENSE.
    What about elderly, disabled, carless people? Does State lines up city buses to evacuate them? Nope. I only read once that in TX all city buses were ready to take people.
    The same in Cayman. It is actually easier in Cayman to to provide full scale assistance to all people in need due to its small size and population. Yet, as 6:58 has said, there are no shelters. I doubt that CIG would say yes to each question raised in 2:26 comment. An oversight? Stupidity? Negligence? Carelessness?
    Perhaps private businesses can “adopt” elderly and disabled people living alone and provide full assistance should such need arise? 2-3 people per business?
    I remember the fuel depot fire. It could have caused a catastrophe for the living in its vicinity residents. I was wondering back then who was thinking about people who weren’t physically able to evacuate? If I remember correctly it was a major failure on all levels. So instead of urging public to prepare, the members of public should ask Premier: Is CIG ready?

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    • Anonymous says:

      Perhaps newer hotels could be used as shelters? The agreement must be made before the first serious hit.
      Are there social services in Cayman who know (should know) exactly who would need an assistance?
      “The government’s utilities regulator, OfReg, and Hazard Management Cayman Islands have joined forces to create an emergency notification system (ENS) to ensure widespread communication in the face of a man-made or natural disaster.”(CNS 06/03/2018) Was it accomplished?

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      • Fin - soft ground says:

        Fin Cayman may not be a good option. The wall facing the sea is built on the soft ironshore (soft fossilized coral) rather than the hard marl (limestone) the neighbouring buildings sit on. The Fin owners might be looking for a modern hotel to stay in.

  4. Anonymous says:

    This is a sad map when you consider how many souls reside in each of these districts:

    https://www.caymanprepared.gov.ky/resources/shelters

    Nearly 18 years post Ivan and nothing has improved – it’s actually worse, since many companies won’t let workers hole up in their buildings to weather a storm/flood surge.

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  5. Anonymous says:

    I think if we all just wear masks that aren’t sealed nor waterproof and go to Fosters to be prayed in magic juice, we’ll be fine.

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  6. Anonymous says:

    LOL people have money to ‘stock up’ or just addressing government workers!

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  7. Anonymous says:

    Fix the damn dump! Oh and the damn radar too.

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    • Anonymous says:

      Why do people always post this? The dump is being fixed, they have a new waste management facility being built?

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      • Anonymous says:

        The 💄lipstick is being put on the Dump, in case you don’t understand. WtE plant will be an environmental and health disaster for Cayman.
        There is still No Long Term Waste Management Strategy in Cayman which starts with RRR.
        ®️Reduce means to minimize the amount of waste we create ↩️
        ®️Reuse refers to using items more than once.↩️
        ®️Recycle means putting a product to a new use instead of throwing it away

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  8. Anonymous says:

    End masks and Travel Time.

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    • Anonymous says:

      The case to end mask mandates and proof they should never have been enacted:

      White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, in fact, told then Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell in a February 2020 email that he didn’t recommend universal masking, arguing masks “are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection.” Similarly, Fauci spoke out against universal masking amid a pandemic in a “60 Minutes” interview one month later. He warned of “unintended consequences,” saying there’s “no reason to be walking around with a mask” in “the middle of an outbreak.”

      The executive director of the World Health Organization health emergencies program, Dr. Mike Ryan, said there was “no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. “In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly.”

      A study comparing data between counties in Kansas found that those that mandated masks for COVID-19 had a higher rate of death than those that did not.

      Finally, COVID-19 data collected by the New York Times shows that the mandates had no impact on case rates.

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  9. watcher says:

    Hopefully, we are about to emerge from the current AMO*, and into another cycle of less storms, as in the past.

    *Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation https://www.noaa.gov/stories/atlantic-high-activity-eras-what-does-it-mean-for-hurricane-season

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    • Anonymous says:

      Time to consider that we currently find ourselves situated under a depression that originated in the Pacific. No amount of nostalgia or sentimentality will change the fact that air, sea, and moisture patterns are deviating from the almanac record. Not just here, but everywhere. Climate change is the new normal as we pass through the 1.5’C “Tipping Point”. These are not opinions, but facts.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Facts are like asses, everyone can find one that suits their needs.

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      • jeff says:

        The system that originated in the pacific is in the southwest gulf of mexico.

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      • watcher says:

        “No amount of nostalgia or sentimentality will change the fact that air, sea, and moisture patterns are deviating from the almanac record” ???????

        Sorry to have trigger you. I wasn’t talking about Climate Change. I was talking about a well-documented cycle of more hurricanes vs. less hurricanes, of which we are likely on the cusp of trending toward a time of lesser probability of hurricanes.

        I feel sorry for you, going around reading posts and looking for things to argue with that appear (to you) to fit your agenda. We are talking about weather. I am a weather nerd, and not without experience. I like verifiable data, because data conclusions help predict trends and future cycles.

        Be safe.

        • Anonymous says:

          @3:57:
          Ok, lets us set the record straight:
          If you are a well-informed “weather nerd” then you should know that the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO) is based upon the average anomalies of sea surface temperatures (SST) in the North Atlantic.
          SST is influenced by climate change. However, the AMO figures are supposed to be adjusted to remove trends in anthropogenically caused warming.
          As a weather nerd you should also know that the researcher who coined the term “Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation” 20 years ago to describe what was believed to be a natural warming and cooling cycle in the North Atlantic, now says the phenomenon does not exist.
          The AMO was first described by Dr Michael E. Mann, a well respected American climatologist and geophysicist who is a professor of atmospheric science at Pennsylvania State University. Dr Mann is the author of ‘The New Climate War’ in which Mann makes an impassioned case against the assault on the basic science of climate change by fossil fuel interests.
          In a paper published in early 2021 Mann and his collaborating colleagues ditched AMO theories. The new research “means that we can more convincingly now conclude that the increases in Atlantic hurricane activity are tied to warming that is human-caused, not natural, in nature,” Mann was quoted in an interview. In other words, the AMO is a symptom of…yup… climate change.
          Thus, my dear weather nerd, we come full circle to climate change. So, yeah, according to the scientist who was an early theorist espousing (and naming) the AMO, you actually were firmly in the realm of climate change by your reference to the AMO.

      • Anonymous says:

        @7:18:
        While I fully espouse the fact of climate change, I have yet to be convinced that it is entirely or even largely based on anthropogenic causes. And while I agree that if anthropogenic activity even modestly contributes to climate change, we should, for what it is worth, try to mitigate that influence. However, we must be prepared to accept that maybe Mother Nature is about to impose yet another extinction-level event upon the Earth and among the species that will disappear might be Homo Sapiens. Homo sapiens is one of several species of the genus Homo, but it is the only one that is not extinct…yet. Perhaps our time is ticking down. We must be prepared to accept that, in trying to mitigate global warming, we are doing nothing more than what treatment of a terminally ill patient accomplishes: we can buy us a little more time on this lovely blue ball before we say “Farewell”. Do you think cockroaches will miss us?

  10. Anonymous says:

    Is CIG ready?

    Shelters are on a standby?
    Food and water reserves are plentiful?
    Community kitchen staff is ready to feed those who lose electricity, live alone or disabled?
    All disabled and seniors living alone accounted for and each have a designated staff to help them with evacuation and other needs?
    Each such a person is visited before major weather event and instructed/trained on what to do and how to reach for help.
    Emergency vehicles are in good repair and filled with gas should they have to reach disabled and vulnerable?
    Medications for elderly and disabled living alone are re-stocked?
    Those who use medical devices requiring electricity provided alternative sources of energy?
    All means of communication with members of public are tested and reliable?
    Elderly and disabled living alone might not be capable of using modern tools of communication, therefore they are provided other reliable and easy to use devices?

    Together we stand! We care about each other!

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    • Anonymous says:

      This. All the hot air blown about “climate change resiliency” and we don’t have functional cat 5 public shelter capacity. People were killed in public cat4 shelters during Ivan from roof collapse and doors blowing in. Fast forward to 2022 and my “Cayman Prepared” district of 15,000+ population has shelter capacity of only around 600. Good luck.

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      • Anonymous says:

        Sure but look at all the nice new investment condo towers along the waterfront. Aren’t they grand?

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        • Beaumont Zodecloun says:

          Yes, they are shiny and full of promise. I think they would make fully functional shelters, if only such legal agreements could be made.

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      • Anonymous says:

        People need to look out for themselves. One would think it’s only babies living in Cayman.

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