Natural disasters and the economy of the Caribbean

tberry6686

PasturesNew wrote: »

I'd get them all off/out.... if you look at the shape of the land and the way hurricanes move you think "look at that, I bet it was all one bit of land once, but there were HUGE storms".

Then you look at historical hurricane data going back thousands of years - and you realise that we're at the end of a "quiet period" and that before humans recently inhabited the islands it was a hell hole of MASSIVE hurricanes/similar.

In short .... it's livening up again on that route. I'd get them off.

Great theory - shame it is wrong. The sea level rise at the end of the last Ice age would have been the dividing factor (if the islands were ever one complete landmass, and that is highly unlikely).

zagubov

michaels wrote: »

Of course none of this is easy politically even for high GDP per capita countries so it is desperately difficult for already poor ones. I guess it would be possible to make a case for a more centralised economic policy a la China where some degree of personal freedom is given up in return for growth focused policies with plans for national resilience but it is very hard to do this right and not end up more like Cuba, Venezuela or North Korea....

Despite its other faults, in terms of disaster planning and preparation, Cuba seems better organised to face these depressingly frequent catastrophes, and their death rates don't reach those found in comparably sized countries like Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There's a downloadable article about this here:
https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol18/iss3/art31/ES-2013-5774.pdf

Cakeguts

The Caribbean has a hurricane season. Every now and then they are going to get a big one but the fact that they have a season means that they know they are coming. So what really needs to happen is for them to build to withstand what is for them normal weather rather than having all this damage when they have a bigger storm than usual.

vivatifosi

Damages from Hurricane Maria alone valued at $40-85bn, with 85% of that from Puerto Rico. "Demand surge" makes rebuilding more expensive:

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2017/09/26/465440.htm

vivatifosi

Natural disasters leading to out-migration. Article focused on Puerto Ricans leaving the island and moving to US east coast cities:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-27/hurricane-maria-may-be-u-s-preview-of-climate-fueled-migration

vivatifosi

MSC Cruises follow NCL in dropping ports from itinerary: Road Town, Tortola, BVI; Phillipsburg, St Martin and Rousseau, Dominica:

http://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/news-headlines/msc-alters-cruises-that-had-st-maarten-tortola-dominica-for-months.html