Cayman quaking in bed - Jamaicans suffer sleepless night in fear of aftershocks
Published:Thursday | January 30, 2020 | 12:21 AMJanet Silvera/Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
A number of Jamaicans in Grand Cayman slept in their clothes and had their running shoes next to their beds, along with documents tucked away in waterproof bags, hours after an earthquake struck the Caribbean island on Tuesday.
Jamaica, The Bahamas, Cuba, and other countries in the Americas were affected by the magnitude-7.7 earthquake.
The temblor caused the closure of schools in Grand Cayman on Wednesday, and left several persons still worrying about the possibility of devastating aftershocks.
“I did not sleep well last night (Tuesday). I was prepared with running shoes by the bedside and passport ready,” Kim Chambers, a Jamaican visiting Grand Cayman, told The Gleaner.
Chambers, who has lived in San Francisco, the Western Hemisphere’s capital of earthquakes, said that she has never experienced anything quite like the anxiety she went through in The Cayman Islands on Tuesday.
“It lasted about 45 seconds. I thought it wasn’t going to end,” she added, still rattled by the incident.
Describing the event, Chambers said that it was frightening watching the water from the pool where her best friend lives flooding the house. She was on the bed when she felt the house swaying and put a pillow over her head.
Grand Cayman, in particular, is now affected by a number of sinkholes that have appeared from the impact, and some communities remained without water up to Wednesday evening.
Gail Bell, a consular officer at the Jamaican Consulate, told The Gleaner that she went to bed dressed and ready to move, with documents in a knapsack at her bedside.
“The idea was to respond quickly as there was uncertainty as to what next we were to expect,” she stated, speaking specifically of the tsunami watch.
Bell said that she was at work when the earthquake hit and initially didn’t know what had hit the building.
“I just saw it moving. It was a very unsettling experience,” she stated, still shaken.
Reliving the experience, Kaye Banhan-Whorms, a Jamaican residing in Cayman for eight years, said that she was actually treating an elderly woman at the spa where she works when the rumbling began.
“Everything just started shaking. One lady actually fainted, and almost all the pregnant women around me were crying because it was so scary.”
Although she was able to move briskly, Banhan-Whorms said that she didn’t have the heart to leave her elderly customer, who was not as fast getting out of the building.
Her husband, David Whorms, on the other hand, said that he was on the road when it happened, and his only concern was his 19-year-old daughter who was home alone.
The family revealed that it was difficult for them to sleep that night.
David Whorms stood guard throughout the night and only slept on Wednesday afternoon after calmness returned to the country.
Efforts to get a comment from the Jamaican honorary consul general, Dr Joseph Marzouca, proved futile. His honorary consul general, Elaine Harris, was reportedly off the island and could not be reached either.