Grand Cayman was badly hit by Hurricane Ivan. The island’s chief building officer, McCleary Frederick, revealed that since the Cayman administration had implemented the Southern Building Code in 1987 the damage was less than if they had carried on without one. Damage was however caused to buildings erected prior to the code being introduced. As a low-lying island, Grand Cayman also incurred damage due to storm surge. This experience has taught the islanders that water is a far stronger power than any wind force. Mr. Frederick’s team now intends to bring in the International Building Code and at the same time are reviewing their policy on storm and flood. The question of a common building code being adopted by all the Caribbean islands, adaptable to the needs and circumstances of each community, is now a live topic of discussion. The advantage of a generally accepted building code is recognised as setting minimum legal standards. Failure of asphalt shingles also caused problems on Grand Cayman, just as it did in Florida, with loss of roof coverings followed by water penetration. This led to the building department’s own multi-storey office being condemned. Structural failures at Grenada stadium In his presentation on what happened in Grenada, structural engineer Tony Gibbs showed images of the concrete columns to the Grenada National Stadium clearly without binders/links, and concrete which appeared like mortar with no signs of aggregate. The damage caused by Hurricane Ivan will have to be put right in time for the World Cup Cricket event in due in 2007. Next time, he said, design and supervision of the work will have to be much better. A current worry in Grenada is the island’s proximity to the underwater volcano known as Kick ‘Em Jenny which is constantly emitting gases lowering the buoyancy of the water and thus presenting a danger to shipping. However, the University of the West Indies Seismic Research Unit has said that the threat of a tsunami caused by an eruption from Jenny’s deep summit is extremely low. Latest news on this front is that following the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean the Caribbean has decided to implement an early warning system. Reprinted from ciobinternational.org