Bermuda Police sent down a team to help out the hurricane-hit Cayman Islands, Dan Rutstein talks to officers about their mercy mission.

You know order has broken down when a Police officer has to be assigned to the queue at Burger King to keep things in order.

But that is the stark ? and sad ? reality of the Cayman Islands, post-Ivan.

The hurricane hit with a devastation and force that those who witnessed Fabian can never imagine. The damage was on a scale so grand that barely a house, car, swimming pool or electricity sub-station was left unharmed.

The boys from Bermuda were sent down to help maintain law and order, with enforcing the 8 p.m. to 5 a.m.curfew ? which was later lightened to 10 p.m. until 3 a.m. ? which was necessary to lock down the dangers of looting with so many domestic and commercial premises left vulnerable.

One officer tells a tale from the early days when two looters at a lumber yard had to be arrested by two Bermudian members of the Police Support Unit while members of the Caymanian Armed Response Unit trained their weapons on the heartless thieves.

This sort of drama, however, was not the order of the day, with many of the other incidents on a much more mundane ? although no less vital ? level.

?We were there in a largely preventive role,? said P.c. Matthew Clayton, who was charged with steering the Police bus precariously around the debris-strewn roads for the early part of the mission.

?We bolstered the local force and allowed them much-needed rest days and the extra numbers and Police presence on the roads helped keep people off the streets while the Island tried to put itself back together.?

Most of the curfew enforcement involved checking the numerous shift workers for construction and utility companies who provided the rare traffic around the nocturnal ghost roads.

One stop, however, proved a little more interesting with a couple ? complete with bags of dirty clothes ? stopped at 3.30 a.m. on the way to the Island?s only surviving Laundromat in a desperate attempt to beat the queues for the 5 a.m. opening.

Clothes washing was just one of the daily necessities of life that the Police officers could no longer take for granted in their temporary home.

?We could hardly sleep at night,? continued Clayton. ?The staff at the hotel were very good to us, but there is only so much you can do without running water or electricity ? let alone one wall of the building missing.

?Sleeping in rooms with soaking floors, no A/C and sweltering conditions isn?t ideal. Who could have thought washing in the sea could be such a pleasant experience??

The food served at the Courtyard Marriott ? in the first days by candlelight ? was not quite up to the usual standards of that hotel chain, either, although officers were grateful for their greasy breakfasts and beef stew suppers ? even with an officer there, braving the Burger King drive-thru queue would have been too much to ask after a long shift.

The Bermudian officers opted to work every day of their time there, affording the local Police ? who were courteous and grateful for help throughout ? the opportunity to work two days on, two days off.

But for the visiting officers it was long nights on the road ? with a local officer or civilian volunteer to provide the directions and local information ? and days spent in awe surveying the damage and having their hands shaken by locals just happy to be alive ? or have a roof on their battered homes.

Wandering around in their Bermuda Police polo shirts, the off-duty officers were struck by the enormous devastation and bizarre machinations of a storm of the intensity of Ivan.

Boats on cars, cars in pools, whole streets of roof-less houses, entire apartment blocks wiped out, roads covered in sand, pre-fab housing estates decimated with only the odd protruding water pipe proof that people had once lived in these piles of rubble.

The putrid stench of stale water was endured everywhere the officers went, although many realised that the Cayman was a place they would have loved to visit ? before the Category Five hurricane wreaked its havoc.

?It looked like it was a wonderful place ? once,? said P.c. Clayton, who, along with his colleagues, nicknamed one area of the Island ?Bosnia? ? so closely did it resemble a war zone.

?Every there was telling us stories of how great it was and pointed to piles of rubble and said what a great bar that was, or a great mall, or what a lovely house.

?This trip has certainly given a lot of us a new appreciation for the power of Mother Nature.?

The officers were all presented with certificates of gratitude by the Caymanian Police Commissioner and Governor.

The local Police were left with an emergency generator that had travelled down with the officers on the private jet from Bermuda.

The mode of transport was probably the only luxury of the trip, although that was somewhat spoilt by the huge holdalls ? brimming with Red Cross donations ? that were placed on the spare seat.

The only other pleasure ? apart from the satisfaction of a public service job well done ? was the solitary day off spent swimming with stingrays.

And no one can argue that the boys in blue from Bermuda didn?t deserve that.