There can now be no question than that during the period immediately ahead, the Caribbean will have to ‘park’ much of what would have been its substantive agenda (and here the Caribbean Investment Forum, scheduled to be held in Guyana between July 9th and 12th comes readily to mind) since the intensity of the earliest period of the Tropical Storm ‘Beryl’, suggests that, going forward, we may well become completely preoccupied with a significantly more aggressive weather pattern.
The earliest portents suggest that an adequate response to the still unfinished rampage is almost certain to be beyond the capability of the region so that during the period ahead, the leaders of the region (at least some of them) are bound to find themselves at the forefront of seeking various forms of support which is, in the first instance, the mitigation of the worst excesses of what has, even at this relatively early stage, already assumed the proportions of a tragedy. During the period ahead, there can now be no question that the countries of the Caribbean will have to work together to quickly assess the scale of the tragedy and to script and implement a coherent response.