Ulric Trotz is Science Advisor to the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre, based in Belmopan, Belize.
By Ulric Trotz
In May this year the US-based National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced that sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, areas considered to be the Main Development Region (MDR) for regional hurricanes, were exceptionally warm for this time of the year. What does this observation tell us about the forthcoming hurricane season? The last time sea surface temperatures were this high in May was in 2008. The result was one of the most active and destructive hurricane seasons in the Caribbean. To recap, Tropical Storm Arthur, appearing two days before the start of the official hurricane season resulted in nine deaths and an estimated damage of seventy eight million US dollars in Belize. It was the only year on record in which a major hurricane existed in every month from July through November in the North Atlantic. In Haiti, eight hundred people were killed by four consecutive hurricanes in August and September – Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike. The year 2008 ranked as the third most costly on record with $45 billion US dollars damage recorded, behind only 2004 and 2005 in terms of damage. The assumption that the existence of preconditions in the MDR portends for an equally active hurricane season this year, is underlined by the most recent forecasts for the forthcoming hurricane season. The hurricane forecasting group out of Colorado State University (CSU) has predicted that this year will see eighteen named tropical storms, of which ten are expected to reach hurricane strength and of those, five are predicted to become major category three or higher storms, with winds above one hundred and ten miles per hour and with a sixty-five per cent likelihood of landfall in the Caribbean. Professor Gray (CSU) has stated that this projected activity is “due to a combination of a transition from El Nino to current neutral conditions and the combination of unusually warm tropical Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures”. NOAA in their most recent forecast have predicted 14-23 named storms, of which 8-14 are expected to develop into full blown hurricanes.
In the face of these projections, the Caribbean faces the yearly challenge of prevention of loss of life and property occasioned by the onset of the hurricane season. The question however needs to be asked, are we fully prepared to deal with the expected threat in Caribbean countries? The answer, unfortunately, is in the negative, with a few notable exceptions like Cuba and Belize. If one compares the loss of life in Cuba as a result of hurricanes with that of a country like Haiti then it is evident that somehow the Cubans have managed to put in place systems for disaster management that are effective. As one observer commented “Cuba has an unmatched record of saving lives and property during hurricanes. Cuba does not wait until the damage is done and then CNN rushes to report the dollar amount of damage. Cuba prevents most of the damage by preventive measures such as mandatory evacuations, including pets and household goods.” Further, with their emphasis on community empowerment and people centred development, even critical personal considerations, such as the health status of evacuees, are factored into their disaster responses. Thus it is not surprising to find that shelters to which evacuees are assigned, are equipped with critical medication, essential for the treatment of the chronically ill in that group. For instance, if you are asthmatic or diabetic, the shelter to which you are assigned would have been stocked with the necessary medication to ensure your well-being.
The Cuban experience could provide some instructive guidance for what we in CARICOM countries need to do, to ensure the effectiveness of our local disaster management practices during the hurricane season.
Underlying the effectiveness of the Cuban system, apart from their unique political, social and cultural structure, is the robust knowledge base that informs their disaster management responses. Using short term weather forecasts derived from dynamic regional climate models, the Cubans are able to determine the key parameters- wind speed and direction, precipitation levels, wave heights and direction, local projected track of storm – needed to inform their national response programme. These forecasts are provided on a continuous basis by the Cuban based Institute of Meteorology (INSMET). This enables them to take proactive action e.g. evacuation of entire neighbourhoods, and thus get people, livestock, pets etc. out of harm’s way. Of course this is in addition to the strict adherence to ongoing national mitigative actions like observing building codes, land use planning regulations e.g. setbacks, all of which tend to contribute to the country’s resilience to disasters of this type.
Compare this people-centred approach that is undergirded by scientific evidence and mitigative approaches, with that in some of our Caribbean islands.
In many of them, information on the characteristics of an impending storm depends on an exchange of information between their local meteorological offices and either their counterparts in Barbados or in Antigua. This information is essential for shaping an effective local response programme in the face of the impending landfall of a hurricane. Unfortunately most of these Meteorological offices are in the airport and this facility is one of the first to close its doors when a hurricane threatens, thus depriving the disaster management apparatus of the vital information needed for their action plan. Site specific local information in the periods preceding, during and after a storm, is a sine qua non for fashioning effective response measures. Unfortunately many of our countries lack this specific input.
Recently, however, there has been a regional initiative to correct this situation. Through the Belize based regional Climate Change Centre, the Cuban-based INSMET has agreed to provide the short term forecasts for all the Caribbean territories on a continuous basis and to post these on an easily accessible web site. It is then planned that INSMET will provide training for national Meteo-rological officers and disaster managers, that will enable them to extract the site specific information from the website post, so that it could inform appropriate action in the country’s disaster management decision making chain of command. Short term forecasts are now also being generated by the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology based in Barbados and will also be made available to countries through this process. It is anticipated that, armed with more relevant country specific data, the disaster management community throughout the Caribbean, would be in a much stronger position, to make more rational decisions on the most effective use of already scarce resources, to cope with the threats posed by the hurricane season.
This is but one dimension of a suite of actions required regionally to increase our resilience to the impacts of disasters engendered by the onset of hurricanes. Equally important, as the Cuban example clearly demonstrates, are considerations such as preventing development and settlement in highly vulnerable areas, enforcement of laws such as setbacks and building codes (many of which are on the statute books in our countries but are conveniently ignored), protection of our natural habitats –our mangroves, wetlands, forests and coral reefs and the overarching requirement for people focused development and the alleviation of poverty.
