HURRICANE HELENE - A HORROR STORY WHICH JUST MISSED CAYMAN

A sigh of relief is rippling throughout Cayman as the community reflects on what might have been after escaping the early stages of what became Hurricane Helene.

As the community remains on high alert during this peak of the hurricane season, preparations are being further intensified for another possible storm following in Helene’s path.

All this is happening while repairs and recovery continue in the wake of the damage inflicted by flooding and storm surges from Helene.

But it was Florida which bore the brunt of the ferocity of Hurricane Helene which slammed into the state’s northern gulf shore on Thursday in full Category 4 strength with winds of 140mph leaving a trail of death and destruction.

The storm also moved inland affecting Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

The rising death toll (around 70 people are known to have died up to press time) accompanied by damage already estimated in the billions of dollars is expected to get worse.

The US National Hurricane Center is also speaking of “catastrophic and historic flooding” in some areas caused by the passage and impact of Hurricane Helene.

Preliminary estimates put the total damage and economic loss from Helene at between $95bn and $110bn, according to AccuWeather.

Helene was the fourth hurricane to make landfall in the US this year.

The huge storm formed rapidly this week and strengthened as it careened across the warm waters of the Gulf gathering speed.

According to the Guardian newspaper, climate scientists have warned that global heating is increasing the numbers and strengths of powerful hurricanes. While no individual storm is down to the climate crisis, the new pattern of more frequent and stronger hurricanes is powered by the planet’s warming oceans and seas.

Much of Helene’s power came from the strength it gathered over the Gulf of Mexico, which has reached unprecedented high temperatures in recent years.

Helene is forecast to be one of the largest storms in years to hit the region, Phil Klotzbach, a Colorado State University hurricane researcher, told the Associated Press. He said since 1988, only three Gulf hurricanes were bigger than Helene’s predicted size: 2017’s Irma, 2005’s Wilma and 1995’s Opal.

Meanwhile, the Gulf of Mexico is now the hottest it’s been in the modern record, according to Brian McNoldy, a climatologist at the University of Miami. “Taking a dip would feel like a bath: The average temperature of the surface is close to 90 degrees”, according to recent measures of sea surface temperature.

“This is out of bounds from the kinds of variability that we’ve seen in [at least] the last 75 years or so,” said Ben Kirtman, director of the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, a joint initiative of the University of Miami and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

“That can be scary stuff,” he warned.