I spent 1.5 weeks on LC last November, and saw a good bit of their post-Ivan damage.
The below photo's aren't mine, but they do provide a little bit of insight in terms of how much of a "blasting" Little Cayman actually took from Hurricane Ivan:
http://photo-xposure.com/gallery/LC
Infoar as condo's, the units down at the West End had seawater infiltration go completely through on the 1st floor & parking lot power distribution shed, which included the breakdown of a stone wall on their parking lot side (saw them rebuilding it). Plus, they had the expected amount of wind damage.
The other condo I'm aware off offhand is Neptune's Berth, which is up along South Sound in Blossom Village, just west of LCBR. Their noticable damage was that their dock was completely taken out. However, their not-so-noticable damage was that their little electrical power junction station took a hit too...its at ground level and halfway up their property next to the public street on their west side.
Overall, the general problem with ground-level slab construction and seawater is that your A/C units and your electrical systems are often low to grade and can thus get exposed to salt water storm surge if you weren't careful in your original building design. FWIW, I'm a timeshare owner on the Brac, in a building that was originally completed in 1990, and the current rennovation is gutting and replacing a lot of their "inside the wall" electrical systems...do the math: a 15 year total lifespan.
True, an A/C condenser's pretty easy to replace. And wet electrical wires can be dried out and used, but its absoultely impossible to get the salt out of where it whicked down under the wire's insulation, and it will sit in here and corrode.
This corrosion does a number on the copper wire's expected lifetime, and then you're into brittle wire breaks and reduced cross-sections, which causes hot spots (translation: "Fire Hazard"). It takes a couple of years and a couple of storm exposures, but in short, you're in for the expense of a rewiring job many decades before you would think is necessary compared to a conventional "terrestrial" home in the States...and don't forget that the Cayman Sister Islands has had repeated "minor" damage from TS Isidore and H Lily in 2002, Ivan in 2004 and H Dennis in 2005...there's probably four times that their wires have likely gotten wet within as many years.
FWIW, the "Splash House" was up for sale, 'as is', from Ivan damage. This is the very pretty waterfront house that sits along the cliff on the north side just west of Salt Rocks. IIRC, the asking price was reduced from around $1.3M to $700K-ish.
http://photo-xposure.com/gallery/latest/splash
Reportedly, the storm's surge & waves breached over the height of the cliff (roughly 10ft vertical) and battered down one of the garage doors on the lower level. The garages are reportedly connected internally to the living space above with a staircase, and the waves caused the air inside the garage space to get compressed and "rammed" up the staircase, which reportedly ended up blowing out "all" of the windows upstairs.
FWIW, the first time that my wife & I looked at buying property in the Caymans was in 1993. At present, we have two friends who own houses on the Brac and overall, we're glad that we decided to "hold off"...IMO, you can't really think of a house in the Sister Islands as being an investment property, partly because nothings cheap, the Caymans make it difficult for you to work on your own house (work permits), which all means that the maintenance costs will generally eat you alive. IMO, if you're going to be on-island for less than 3 months/year, its probably cheaper to rent. Best yet is to have a friend who owns the house and has given you a set of its keys.
-hh
