After Hurricane Ivan there was a problem with looting. Does the Cayman Islands hurricane preparedness plan account for this possibility in the event of a major hurricane? It would be nice to feel some degree of comfort that the island would not descend into lawlessness.
Auntie’s answer: Hurricane season will be here soon enough (1 June-30 November), so it definitely is not too early to be asking these types of questions. I reached out to Hazard Management Cayman Islands (HMCI), which is responsible for national disaster management, comprising preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery.
The agency also maintains the “National Hazard Management plans for threats such as hurricanes and earthquakes”, according to the HMCI website.
An HMCI official explained that since Hurricane Ivan in 2004, the agency has worked “to expand the National Emergency Operations Centre’s response to any large-scale event”.
Now there are concrete roles and responsibilities for 17 Emergency Support Teams, the official said. You can see the EST organisational chart here, divided into four groups, with one specifically responsible for Emergency Response. In the event of an emergency there will be an RCIPS presence at all “critical buildings and increased security island wide”.
The official also acknowledged it is “impossible to say whether looting will happen” in the future but was “confident that significant steps have been taken to reduce the possibility”.
Send questions to auntie@caymannewsservice.com
There are many forms of post-Hurricane looting: from the gangs of roaming miscreants, the insurance companies offering 40 cents on the dollar, and the shipping and export companies that extort extra premiums to jockey your reprovisions and vehicle bookings onto some future sail date TBD. Let’s hope we never have to go through that shambles again in our lifetimes.
Nothing will prevent looting in the Cayman Islands after a hurricane. It’s part of the culture.
You mean Jamaican culture. Those are who looted my house with a full panel van of stuff.
No. I mean Caribbean culture. Jail is full of Caymanian theifs also. The Guy who looted the house I was renting was from across the street and spends most of his time in jail.
My .45 hand gun and my machette prevents looting at my house.