We were all battened down with several other families at the church (First Bapt. of Grand Cayman) and we were in the gym just listening to the rain and the wind. Most of the adults figured we should probably try to go to sleep around 10 pm that Saturday evening of Sept. 11, 2004, and at midnight the power went off. Jn and several other men from the church who were there with us went out to try and see if the generator would kick in, but no luck. The music minister's wife, Kathy, and her son Jonathon and JEB and I went into the sanctuary to try and get some sleep since it was much quieter in there. We actually did get some sleep until around 3:30 am John and Kathy's husband, Dave, came running in and said that we needed to get up and come in the gym, because the water was rising. Dave, Jn(who was the prinicpal of the school there) and Mike (now a very good friend of ours and a local restaurant owner) spent some time discussing what we should do next. The water ended up being about knee deep, and believe me, you didn't even want to know what it looked like or think about what you were bumping up against as you waded thru it....THANK GOODNESS the lights were out. Most of us moms with smaller children sat like sardines, squished on the stage in the gym. The winds were howling and later we found out at gusts of 225mph, a good, strong catagory 5 hurricane.
It was at that point the three guys decided that we should probably move to the sanctuary balcony, since the water was NOT very sanitary to walk around in, the kids were getting quite fidgety on that stage and the roof of the gym was making all sorts of weird sounds and they decided it would be safer in the church. As we loaded up what we could take with us, (all of our stuff was in Jn's office on the second floor), and carrying our children, we waded thru the water to get to the santcuary. Now, let me say that this church was octagonal shaped and had an outside walkway most of the way around the back of the building with two retangle-shaped buildings jutting out from the octagon shape of the sanctuary. All of that info to say, we had to go outside for about 5 ft. from the door of the gym to the door of the sanctuary with the wind pelting you as you walked thru the now almost waist high water.
Jn was carrying JEB and I was holding onto him, while the other guys were making a human rope of sorts and walking us all thru this to get into the sanctuary, which was filling with water rapidly. The family in front of us, a local Caymanian family, was going thru the door and when the wife began to enter the sanctuary she immediately froze and refused to go in because of the water flooding the church. The guys sort of shoved her in as they were trying to get the rest of us in safely. It scared me for a few seconds because I was concerned about JEB, who by that time was awake and the wind and water scared him, so he was crying.
We got into the church and went up the side stairs to the balcony and settled into a pew with other families we knew around us. As the night turned into daylight, what we experienced next was quite an experience. We watched as the rain began coming into the church and just running down the walls in sheets. We could see tree palms flying by the windows and the huge, octagonal window bow in and out, as we listened to the wind blow.
After 14 hours of this, Ivan finally moved on and began to subside although we didn't really venture out until Monday morning. This was a very powerful storm and moved very slowly. Sunday night saw many Caymanians, whose homes had been flooded and devastated, brought to the church for shelter. For many weeks post-hurricane, the church provided food for families and emergency workers from the soup kitchen of sorts that had been set up. Many restuarants sent food from their freezers that were now broken and ruined to the church for us to cook up and do with what we could.
The devastation on the island was unbelieveable.....many homes in total ruin, ours included, but God held his hand of protection on us as only 2 people died as a result of the hurricane. It was many weeks before power was restored as well as phone service or cable tv. We were able to salvage all of our belongings, but we had no where to live. We ended up staying with the music minister and his family for several weeks. John stayed with them while JEB and I came back to the states for 6 weeks and stayed with friends in Idaho. We then spent 5 weeks with a widow lady from the church, but ended up leaving at Christmas time due to low enrollment at the school and no where to live that was affordable. God lead us back to Alabama for the next three years, and now here we are in SW Georgia. Wow, what a trip!!
I love you JESUS! Thank you for being in control of every part of our lives!!
