I am a Caymanian and have lived on all three islands for 50 years and have never felt so angry with the government or whoever was the Captain that made the decision to abandon the people of Little Cayman during Hurricane Dean.
To leave the people who wanted to go to the hurricane shelter without that option is a disgrace. Then the Mate who made the decision to shut down the power plant and further abandon the residents who made the choice to stay in further distress is hard to forgive.
No matter how small our island is we are still supposed to have the same rights and protection as Grand Cayman and Cayman Brac.
We do understand your concerns for the tourists, the elderly and people who require medical assistance and they should be made to leave as our shelter would not be able to handle them. Had the evacuation been given for those people and further evaluated for the residents perhaps the chaos and panic that happened could have been prevented.
Ever since Little Cayman has had a power plant many people gave up their generators because we believed we would not be deprived of their services. During Hurricane Ivan I stayed on Little Cayman and I must commend the job done by the power plant employees. It was fantastic. The same could be said for the government employees who stayed.
I have two freezers and two refrigerators that are always packed full at the beginning of hurricane season due to the difficulty and expense of getting supplies here on Little Cayman. In one of my freezers I lost more that half of my food and some in the other freezer as well. Most of the food in the refrigerators could not be trusted to keep and was thrown out. This was a big loss for us and I know that many people had the same situation.
Should the government be held responsible to replace these items? I cooked outside on a wood fire in the rain to save approximately 30 pounds of turtle meat and invite other local people to share rather than losing this precious food.
I was told to sign a waiver or would be forced to leave the island. If this happened on one of the other two islands would the same rules apply? I think not!
The people of Little Cayman always seem to be treated as second-class citizens. We get the left over equipment from Brac or Grand Cayman that is always in need of repair. When are we going to be treated as part of the Cayman Islands?
Who were the Captain and Mate who abandoned the people of Little Cayman?
Joffer Denvy Smith
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