After Hurricane Beryl’s Cataclysmic Impact, a Caribbean Leader Envisions a Resilient Future

When a vicious Category 5 hurricane formed in the Atlantic in late June, the world held its breath. There was no question that the impacts from Hurricane Beryl would be cataclysmic.

But across the Caribbean, carefully coordinated plans were in full swing. Officials and leaders had been running scenarios and making arrangements for months. Public messages focused on proactive measures and public safety. If potable water supplies were damaged, more would be brought in by barge.

“When we heard the prediction that 2017 was likely to be one of the worst possible years on record, we immediately went into scenario-planning mode and have maintained that level of preparedness since,” said Dr. Didacus Jules, the Director General of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.

Weather agencies had predicted that 2024 might bring as many as 25 named storms. Beryl, the earliest Category 5 hurricane on record, was an ominous confirmation of their fears, killing 33 people in the Caribbean alone and causing near-total devastation on islands in Grenada and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The OECS is an intergovernmental organization focused on regional integration, economic development and collaboration, protection of human rights, good governance, and environmental resilience. In recent years, the organization has deepened its emphasis on planning for natural disasters, working with state governments in the Eastern Caribbean and regional specialized agencies such as the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, or CDEMA.

In partnership with Direct Relief, which is providing $3 million in grant funding to projects in nine member states, the OECS has been able to bolster medical infrastructure and the response capacity of member states as part of this work.

This growing focus points to a disturbing truth: The people of the Caribbean are on the frontlines of climate change, facing an increasing number of monster storms, droughts, extreme heat events, and other ecological threats. Sea level rise and habitat loss further impact their safety, economies, and natural resources.

Category 5 storms — including Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Irma and Maria in 2017, and Beryl in late June and early July — have caused direct and indirect deaths, destroyed vital infrastructure and many homes, and created severe financial hardship, among other impacts.

This disproportionate threat is especially unjust because the Caribbean States are among the world’s lowest contributors to climate change. Small island states across the globe — including those in the Caribbean — contribute less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Among other projects in partnership with OECS Member States, the OECS Commission, and Direct Relief will procure solar-powered cold-chain storage and mobile medical units in Montserrat, develop a centralized medical oxygen system for Anguilla’s Princess Alexandra Hospital; and support vector-borne disease surveillance and prevention work in Antigua and Barbuda.

Dr. Jules spoke with Direct Relief about Hurricane Beryl’s impact, the growing impacts of climate change, and building a resilient future in a warming world.

Direct Relief: Let’s start with the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. Tell me about the impacts, and what the response and recovery process has looked like in the months since.

Dr. Jules: The impact has been nothing short of cataclysmic, especially for Carriacou and Petite Martinique [in Grenada], and the Grenadine islands, like Mayreau and Union Island. These islands were devastated, and we immediately moved into gear with the support of Direct Relief, one of our early response partners. Before every hurricane season, Direct Relief assists us by having pre-hurricane packs located at strategic points in each country across the region. When Beryl hit, we all pitched in to provide some of the emergency supplies needed.

The first order of business was to be part of the team doing an assessment on the ground of the impact of the damage. The other lengthy part of that process has been the collection and clearance of all the debris that has been generated by the hurricane.

Our heads of government have been very central to this effort. Prime Minister Gonsalves [of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines], in a recent meeting, described the painstaking process involved in that recovery. Here you have more than 5,000 people with nowhere to sleep or to stay, having to be accommodated in tents and makeshift accommodations.

If you live in the Caribbean now, you would know how hot it is on an ordinary day. Having to live in tents in a post-disaster scenario can be unbearably uncomfortable, given the levels of heat experienced on an ordinary sunny day. To have a tent as your temporary, indefinite living quarters until recovery is completed is no longer a reliable option. Additionally, in post-disaster situations, there are sanitation problems, and challenges with the provision of meals and food to the affected population.

The clean-up is a massive effort. Now, it’s not a question of simply scouring the island and picking up galvanize [steel sheeting]. There has to be sorting of different kinds of debris.

Importantly, a lot of that stuff was blown out to sea, and a significant area of mangrove and seagrass beds was destroyed. Whatever was blown from land into the sea also needs to be recovered.

Direct Relief: What have the health impacts been?

Dr. Jules: Health impact was a whole different ball game because people are homeless: no shelter, no sanitation, and no food. Thankfully, we have partners who have been able to provide daily meals. We’ve been able to get some makeshift accommodation for them, but then the heat is stifling, and the supply of water is compromised.

Sanitation is a big thing because most of the sanitation infrastructure has been destroyed. How does one deal with human waste? Many animals have been destroyed as well, requiring the disposal of dead wildlife.

To compound it, there have been mosquito infestations in several of the islands, so the threat of dengue and other vector-borne diseases has intensified.

Direct Relief: Because of climate change, the Caribbean faces a steeply increased and extremely disproportionate threat. I’d like to hear a little bit about how the awareness of that growing threat has informed your preparedness and your resiliency work.

Dr. Jules: We have tried to digest the lessons of the previous devastations that we’ve experienced, from [Hurricanes] Ivan right up to Irma and Maria, and now Beryl. We have been discussing with our partners, including Direct Relief, how we can be more strategic in preparing for those events because it’s clear that these events will happen with greater frequency and increased ferocity.

We have a partnership agreement with Direct Relief that looks at the provision of photovoltaic systems; helping critical government infrastructure transition to green energy; solar power as back-up for public health care infrastructure in particular; strengthening the cold chain so that medical supplies can be safeguarded; looking at medical oxygen generation; and the training of personnel in the utilization of that type of equipment.

In the process of building back better, we are also looking at the architecture of the buildings and what needs to be done to ensure that they’re more resilient, able to withstand storms of the category that we’re now seeing, Category 5, and maybe even beyond. The use of concrete roofing, and hurricane-proofing of the buildings will be vitally important.

Our building codes have to be revised yet again and serious standards established. For example, water storage. We’re at a stage where we may have to mandate that every house constructed has its water storage beneath the foundation so we can have adequate supplies of utilizable water. Don’t forget, besides the storms, we have an increasing frequency of other disasters like drought.

The drought during the dry season is extremely deleterious to crops, and agriculture, and also to human water needs. We’re experiencing extreme heat, from extreme heat to extreme weather conditions with flooding, followed by periods of extreme drought, and sometimes these things happen out of season. The distinction between seasons, and the preparation for seasons, is becoming increasingly muddled.

Direct Relief: What do you most want readers to know about the impacts of tropical storms on Caribbean states and communities?

Dr. Jules: I think it’s very difficult for people in large countries with huge demographics to understand the scale of human suffering these disasters bring to small states. When you hear, for example, that maybe 20-odd people died in a hurricane in Dominica, this may seem inconsequential to most people who live in a large metropolitan city of millions, and they may [not] be sympathetic to that news unless it is put in the context of scale. For the population of Dominica, what is the impact of this disaster placed in the context of size and scale?

One has to put those things in context: twenty people dying in Dominica from a hurricane [out of a national population of about 66,000]. If there was a hurricane in New York City or Tokyo and the same percentage of the population were to die, that would definitely get the attention of the world. To the rest of the world, that would be a huge disaster.

Twenty people dying is a major disaster in the Caribbean must therefore be placed in its contextual proportion in the scale of human suffering.

Direct Relief: In terms of storm resiliency and awareness, what is the next thing that needs to happen?

Dr. Jules: I think we need to do a lot more about is building public awareness. Disaster cycles are becoming shorter and shorter, and their intensity is increasingly larger and greater. Messaging to the population about what needs to be done in the event of a disaster is something that we need to take very seriously as a priority.

We need to prepare people through disaster drills. I believe our schools have an important role to play in that because it’s easy to sensitize kids to what needs to be done. Just as they do in Tokyo, sensitizing kids about earthquakes, we need to sensitize our children and our communities so that these precautions are taken.

Just as you do a fire drill, we need to begin to do hurricane drills, tsunami drills, and disaster drills in general so that awareness is heightened, and, rather than panic when something happens, people know the correct thing to do.

We need to better prepare ourselves, psychologically and in terms of readiness to disasters, as they will happen more with greater frequency.

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This interview has been edited for length. Dan Hovey and Genevieve Bitter contributed to the reporting.