It was to be a paradise vacation in the Cayman Islands.

But thanks to Hurricane Ivan, a Lawrence woman found herself in a living hell last weekend as the powerful storm whipped Grand Cayman Island.

Brooke Spicer found herself crammed into a storm shelter with at least 500 other people while Ivan’s heavy rains and 165 mph winds maimed the island.

And while the shelter protected the 22-year-old from injury, life in an overcrowded shelter presented its own problems. There was no electricity, no lights, and it was hot, she said. Toilets couldn’t adequately be flushed. Food consisted of Vienna sausages, pork and beans, and tuna.

“There was nothing you could do,” Spicer said. “You felt like you were going crazy. Some guys would fight over a fan. I got sick because of the smell and the heat.”

Spicer, who graduated from Kansas University earlier this year, arrived in the Caymans on Aug. 30. She traveled with a friend, Shelley Larson, a Canadian. They planned to stay in the Caribbean tourist mecca as long as possible and maybe get jobs there, Spicer said.

When talk of Ivan began early last week, Grand Cayman natives thought the Category 5 hurricane would miss them and hit other islands nearby. Spicer and Larson were staying at a bed and breakfast inn and were advised Thursday to move into a hotel to ride out what was expected then to be a sideswipe by Ivan.

Saturday morning they checked into a room at the Kemper Suites hotel and bought groceries.

“Nobody was talking about a major hurricane,” Spicer said. “We thought we were going to watch a tropical storm. Everybody was going to have hurricane parties. We had settled in for what we thought was going to be a fun couple of days.”

About 6 p.m. Saturday, that changed. The hotel was evacuated, and everyone was sent to the hurricane shelter, which Spicer described as about the size of a high school gymnasium. Cell phone service stopped, and so did the frantic conversations between Spicer and her mother, Diane Spicer, who was back home in Lawrence nervously watching Ivan’s progress on The Weather Channel.

“Her anxiety level had gone up, and so had mine,” Diane Spicer said.

Monday morning, after the brunt of the hurricane had passed the Caymans, Brooke Spicer and her friend decided to leave the shelter, against the advice of the shelter’s operators.

“Thirty-seven hours was all we could take,” she said.

Spicer and Larson walked all day, then begged a hotel manager to let them stay one night in a damaged Treasure Island Hotel. Tuesday they made their way back to Kemper Suites.

At the hotel they learned that the roof had collapsed and fallen into the building’s fifth floor. A manager allowed them to go to their fourth-floor room at their own risk to gather their belongings.

“We went up there and got out real quick,” Spicer said.

Ivan aims for U.S. today Hurricane drives Lawrence native home (09-04-04)

From the hotel Spicer went to the main airport only to find it closed. She tried a private airport nearby.

Luckily, planes bringing relief workers from the United States were landing there, and Spicer and Larson were able to board one for the return trip.

“I suddenly found myself shoved in line for a flight to Miami,” she said.

While she was in line, she was able to make a 10-second call to her mother and let her know she was getting on a plane.

“At least I knew she was alive,” Diane Spicer said.

The next phone call between mother and daughter came Tuesday night, after Spicer had arrived in Miami. Wednesday afternoon, she flew into Kansas City International Airport.

Her own troubles aside, Spicer said she was appalled by the damage the hurricane brought to Grand Cayman. The tourism industry the island relies on for its livelihood was devastated and will take a long time to recover, she said.

By Wednesday, dozens of people still had not been accounted for, and the British territory remained under a state of emergency. Media reports on the islands said sailors from a British navy vessel were trying to keep security amid looting and other troubles.

“It’s absolutely horrible,” Spicer said. “It’s hard to describe it. The people who live there are very nice. I feel really bad for them. I can come back home where everything to me is wonderful, and they have to stay there and deal with it.”