We must applaud the magnanimous gesture of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley allowing children from our hurricane-ravaged neighbouring islands to seek refuge and continue education within our land. Traumatic experiences can lead to acute stress disorder, PTSD, anxiety, and depression. Some lives will never be the same again. Just witnessing your roof whisked away, your belongings evaporate in the wind, and your village decimated can be traumatic and shocking. The PM should also give consideration and allow an adult relative to accompany these children. Uprooting children and putting them in a strange land with distant relatives (who may be strangers) can also be disquieting.
I was in Tobago when the news of the approaching weather front was announced. Many parents were accompanying their children who attended the Island Crashers’ four-day fete. Some who stayed in Coco Reef sampled the bar’s favourite, the Hurricane Cat 5 drink, which would make one sway without an actual hurricane.
My wife, Sherene, noticed the rapid increase in the storm‘s category and was determined that we return to Trinidad on Sunday instead of Monday. (There went the Jade Monkey storm lime.) Thankfully, we got on the last flight home before the weather prohibited other flights. Thanks to CAL for their additional flights.
Beryl, the first hurricane of the season, has left its path of death and destruction. Thankfully, T&T was once again spared by our ‘Trinidadian god’. T&T is a paradise and must be marketed as one of the safest destinations in the Caribbean. Many boats sailed into the Gulf of Paria to seek shelter. Beryl destroyed 98 per cent of the buildings in Carriacou, where 10,000 people live. Their main health facility, the Princess Royal Hospital, airport and marinas were decimated.
On Tuesday night, there was no electricity, and communications were down. “There is literally no vegetation left anywhere on the island of Carriacou; the mangroves are totally destroyed,” Grenada’s Prime Minister Mr Mitchell announced. Mitchell blamed Beryl as a direct result of global warming, saying, “We are no longer prepared to accept that it’s OK for us to constantly suffer significant, clearly demonstrated loss and damage arising from climatic events and be expected to rebuild year after year while the countries that are responsible for creating this situation—and exacerbating this situation—sit idly by.”
However, the Caribbean has always been one of the most hurricane-prone regions in the world. The word hurricane is derived from the Carib god Huracán.
A statuette that was found in Cuba by scholar Fernando Ortiz depicts it with two arms sweeping in a counterclockwise direction, mimicking a hurricane’s spiral winds, which amazed MIT hurricane scientist Kerry Emanuel about the Carib’s knowledge of the wind flow. Christopher Columbus encountered a hurricane on his second voyage in 1494, and European colonisers started recording some of the earliest accounts.
The 1780 Great Hurricane, which remains the deadliest Atlantic hurricane, killed 22,000 people across the Caribbean. This destroyed forts and was estimated at 200 mph. One week before, it is believed that the Savanna-la-Mar hurricane killed 3,000 people, and three weeks later, the Solano’s hurricane killed 2,000 people.
This was a strange revelation since the islands were not overpopulated, had old-growth vegetation and forests to help break the winds, and there was no dangerous debris from modern infrastructure to cause fatalities. So hurricanes should not have been as dangerous back then as they are now.
History shows devastating hurricanes struck Dominica (1815) and the Dominican Republic (1930). Some of us would remember Flora (1963); David (1979); Gilbert (1988); Ivan (2004); Katrina (2005); Matthew (2016); Irma and Maria (2017); and Dorian (2019).
Over the years, Caribbean nations have improved their hurricane preparedness and response strategies, but they still need to enforce better building codes. A past principal of the UWI, Pro Max Richards oversaw the Department of Engineering, which produced brilliant engineers who could apply scientific principles to design and create infrastructure to mitigate adverse weather. Rebuilding and deciding which areas to keep habitable is sometimes a tough but necessary administrative and personal decision.
In 2017, after Maria killed 65 Dominicans, a fifth of the population migrated. Beryl has set records as the first Category 4 hurricane to form so early in the season. Usually, we see this in mid-September. With ocean temperatures rising, hurricanes can grow from a weak storm into a Category 4 hurricane within just 24 hours; hence, a quick timeline of response must be CDEMA’s new thrust.
The history of hurricanes in the Caribbean is a testament to our region’s vulnerability but also illustrates our resilience and adaptability. We need to take care of our ecosystems, do our part against global warming, build resilient infrastructure, and continue to be there for our Caribbean neighbours.