At Old Man Bay grocery store somewhere along the deserted and desolate coastline of Grand Cayman, Beryl Cathlyn McCoy is still smiling.

At 87 years old, she was the only person The Royal Gazette could find who could remember another storm as furious and devastating as Hurricane Ivan.

?Everybody is saying that this is such a terrible storm. It was ? because the storm is gone and it is only the effect of the storm that is left,? said Ms McCoy.

?I was here during the 1932 storm. I was 14 years old and that was a terrible storm and the only difference between this storm and the ?32 storm is we in Cayman didn?t have then what Cayman got now. And that is why they are saying this is such a terrible storm.?

The 1932 storm killed over 100 people and primarily affected the sister islands of Cayman Brac and Little Cayman.

This time around the sister islands were spared and Grand Cayman was badly hit.

Ms McCoy has four adult children ? one of whom is living abroad ? and the others are close to the capital Georgetown, and in Cayman Brac. She was living in her Old Man Bay home with her husband when Ivan came to visit. Their nearby uninsured two bedroom cottage, which was providing some valuable rental income, was blown away by Ivan.

Now she makes do with no running water, a small generator for electricity, and lots of faith.

?I can?t use that all the time because it takes so much oil. Oh God. Expensive. Very, very expensive,? she said of the generator. ?But anyhow, I am a person who can live and let live. l don?t expect to use things like when I had the current because I can?t wash, I can?t use the machine. I just use the generator to give me a little light, with the fridge.?

When the generator is not running, she dips water out of a cistern.

?The generation that is living now, they don?t know nothing about the ?32 storm. They?re just living in a world where things are flowing like milk and honey.?

Still she is amazed at the amount of destruction wrought by Ivan. ?This little area ? Old Man Bay got hit ? but it didn?t get hit like what the other places on the other side of the Island. But when I came home the next morning and I see my little cottage gone, I said ?Oh, My God?. All the years that I?ve strived to get this, it?s gone.?

She said she could not afford to keep up insurance payments for the cottage because many of her tenants had been unreliable with the rent.

?There was always a cockaboo story that they would bring to me. Having a good heart in your body is good, but I tell you there are some people that will take advantage of it. But anyhow let bygones be bygones. And that is how I look at it.?

Now she says her life is going on ?as normal?.

?God moves in mysterious ways in so many different things. You know they say he is a good God but he is a jealous God too,? she said continuing her reflections on the storm.

?Cayman is mixed now with all nationality and it is all nationality that is here in Cayman and most of them is just putting all their trust in the material things in life.

?God has sent this storm ? couldn?t He have prevented it ?

?He could have prevented it if he wanted to, but to make man, woman and children see that the material things of this life don?t consist of the abundance of God?s mercies. It is the material things of Cayman that set the people crazy.

?I may be included too, but I don?t take God out of my life. He is my Supreme.?