Hurricanes 101 - What To Do With Your Car

So it's spring in Cayman and that means that the hurricane season is just around the corner.  I am from Canada and have absolutely no experience with any tropical storms so I will try to inform you all about what I have learned so far.

According to Cayman New Resident 10 000 cars got destroyed during hurricane Ivan in 2004. Since I drive a proper Cayman Island car I have only one way insurance so if my car did get destroyed I would not be too crushed but it would still be a pain to not have a car once the whole thing blew over (pardon the pun).

The most important thing is to put gas in your car. It is a good idea to never let your gas gauge go below the half way point during the hurricane season as you have no idea what the availability of gas will be after the storm. 

As for where to put your car, there are a few options to minimize damage

The first option is free, simply move your car to higher ground. Cayman is pretty flat but there are places that are a little bit higher then others. Stay away from westbay, seven mile, or south sound, these will be flooded. A friend who lived about 1km inland from Treasure Island had flooding of his house about hip height so these areas are just not flood proof. Heading to east end things get a bit better. Around the thickest parts of the island you should be ok. As I was doing research for this post I found the following video. It appears to be around the crew road round-about. I am sure that if a hurricane is coming there will be lots of announcements about where this is. Parking on higher ground should save your car from flooding but it will not protect it from flying debris though.

If you really want to protect your car the second option is Dart - the company that owns Camana Bay. They have a concrete car park in which you can reserve a spot. At this time the cost appears to be $100 for the season. There is this post by Dart News with more information about this. There is also a news cast from Cayman 27 about this, it is older but I think it still applies.