The top story in the 26 Sept. 1974 edition of The Caymanian Compass serves as a still-very-relevant cautionary tale for hurricane season. Hurricane Fifi had devastated Honduras, leading to a chartered flight from Swan Island in that stricken country to Cayman. The 19 people on board that flight were part of a group of 36 who had left Bonacca Island, bound for Cayman, via Swan Island, on a shrimp boat; the other 17 had arrived by that boat, Fancy Pants, earlier in the day. Most of the Hondurans who sought refuge in Cayman had either friends or relatives living here. A hurricane relief centre in Grand Cayman was also organising aid to be flown to Honduras.
Also on the front page was the story ‘Government Makes Statement On Repatriation’, concerning the ongoing saga of the expatriate staff of Sterling Bank and Trust, which had gone into liquidation. If the staff affected wanted to return to their home country, but could not afford the airfare, the government said it would repatriate them with the understanding that the amount “will be recoverable”. Anyone wanting to stay in Cayman had to apply for another job, which would be processed by the Caymanian Protection Board, a precursor to Workforce Opportunities and Residency Cayman.
The editorial, headlined ‘Rigid Measures Needed’, was also about Sterling Bank. “Now that the whole colony is feeling consequences of the liquidation” of the bank, the Compass called it “regrettable” that few facts have been supplied about what transpired “with so many far-reaching proportions”. It urged the government to implement measures “to rectify the situation and to ensure that no repetition of incidents of this magnitude ever occurs in the Cayman Islands”.
Balancing out all that heavy news was a photo on page 12, headlined ‘A Home Of Their Own’. Pictured were two goats, hanging out in the back of a wrecked car on School House Road in George Town, with no one apparently in much of a hurry to move the vehicle.
Related Videos
