The House Survived, But The Pokémon Didn’t

Originally Written for Class (Fall 2014)

It’s been eleven years since the then seven-year-old Brennan Ackermon lost his entire Pokémon card collection to Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. He even lost his favorite card, the “Kyogre EX.” Ackermon had been building a substantial collection of Pokémon cards for almost four years, but he laments this card above any other. “It was a special one. Shiny and rare,” said the now 18-year-old Ackermon.

The category five hurricane inundated Ackermon’s hometown of West Bay, Grand Cayman with destructive wind and rain for nearly two days straight. Ackermon and his family weathered the storm in a second-floor, concrete-walled condo in a building that his mother managed at the time.

“I remember looking out from the balcony and seeing water coming in past the pool even though it was 100 feet away from the beach,” said Ackermon of the flooding Hurricane Ivan brought Grand Cayman. The higher vantage point of the condo, though better than the Ackermon family home, did little to benefit the Ackermon family as the storm progressed. Ackermon recalls that they had some flooding, even on the second floor.

“The storm was loud and so much water was coming into the building,” said Ackermon. The water and wind would prove damaging as destruction impeded the function of daily life in Grand Cayman for months after the Ivan’s hurricane weather concluded.

Ackermon’s house survived the storm but suffered extreme water damage and they deemed the cars total losses. “We had no electricity for three months. We used a gas generator to boil sea water and had a survival kit with dried and canned foods to eat,” said Ackermon. He and his family lived simply in those months and a more typical lifestyle was reestablished after many stores reopened about two months after the storm.

A new normal was certainly established in Grand Cayman as the island community recovered from Hurricane Ivan. The storm negatively impacted the economy and much of the area had needed to be rebuilt. “The storm changed the path of Cayman. Some area companies gained more control in the rebuilding than they probably would have,” Ackermon said.

Ackermon appeared pensive as he talked about the diverging paths of Grand Cayman and his own life, gazing at nothing in particular, sighing and saying, “Things changed for Cayman after the hurricane. I wonder what would have happened with the businesses if the storm didn’t happen.”

It’s hard to know for sure what would have happened with Grand Cayman economically if Hurricane Ivan had never paid a visit, but Ackermon would have gotten to keep his favorite Pokémon card at least a little longer.