Finding the will and wherewithal – reflections one year after Hurricane Maria

This past week the world has been gripped by the images and reports of two dangerous storms happening at the same time, on two different sides of the planet – Hurricane Florence in the Atlantic and Typhoon Mangkhut in the Pacific.

These devastating storms have brought the need for disaster preparedness and relief to the fore of our minds, and it is timely that the upcoming Commonwealth Finance Ministers Meeting centres on the theme ‘Enhancing National Capacity to Reduce Disaster Risk’.

We ask ‘how can a community, a city, a country, pick up the pieces and move forward?’

A year ago today, the Caribbean nations of Dominica and Puerto Rico had to answer this very question after they were hit by Hurricane Maria. While Caribbean countries are no strangers to hurricanes, Maria was no ordinary storm.

As a category 5 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 165 miles per hour, Maria was the strongest hurricane in the costliest ever Atlantic hurricane season on record.

Striking days after category 5 Hurricane Irma left death and destruction in Barbuda, Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands and The Bahamas, and weeks after Hurricane Harvey caused fatalities and damage in Houston, Texas, Maria set upon an already storm-weary region.

As the winds raged and the rain pounded, Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit posted on Facebook “My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding.” He told of the “mind-boggling” damage and made a plea for help of all kinds.

And then there was silence. With damaged power lines, telephone, radio, and internet services, Dominica was cut off from the rest of the world.

We Have Lost All

When communication was restored, the reports coming from the island were grim. Maria had damaged the roofs of about 98% of buildings in Dominica, with half of homes also having their frames destroyed. The country’s agriculture sector was wiped out – 100% of banana and tuber plantations were lost. There were water shortages due to uprooted pipes and reports of looting.

Prime Minister Skerrit summed it up aptly: “We have lost all what money can buy and replace.”

Estimates have put that loss at $1.37 billion, which is 226% of the GDP for 2016.

In the face of such widespread devastation, it begs the question, ‘how can any country, particularly small countries, recover and move on?’ How do they find the will? Where do they get the wherewithal?

Where Do We Go From Here?

Today, a year on from that tragic hurricane and Dominica is still recovering. While the airports and harbour are open and operational, only 57% of the total stock of pre-Maria hotel rooms are available. The roads, while passable, vary in their condition. Many homes and schools still need repair and several nature trails, which are popular tourist attractions, still need to be cleared.

The people of Dominica are finding the will to rebuild. When you are an independent country, there is nowhere else to go. You pick yourself up, brush yourself off and start to put the pieces back together. Indeed, in true Caribbean style, recovery has been approached with both dedication and a touch of humour – no less than 15 calypso songs have been written about Maria!

Finding the wherewithal – the human and financial resources to aid the recovery process – can be more difficult. Countries have to wade through various options to get the right kind of resources at the right time and cost. Commonwealth research has shown some signs that disasters tend to increase external debt to GDP ratios in SIDS (small island developing states), many of whom are already highly indebted (Darius, Mitchell, Zaman and Raja, 2018).

To help countries navigate the fragmented disaster finance landscape, the Commonwealth Secretariat is proposing to create a Disaster Risk Management and Finance Portal. The portal aims to be a one stop-shop for information on a range of disaster finance instruments and options. The concept for this portal will be presented to Commonwealth Finance Ministers at their upcoming meeting in Bali, Indonesia on October 11, 2018.

The Mother of Invention

As for Dominica, it has found some particularly interesting ways of financing their recovery from Maria. In addition to getting support from Dominican diaspora communities around the world, and using the proceeds of their citizenship-by-investment programme to reinvigorate development, Dominica has used voluntourism – where tourists engage in charitable work during their vacation — to boost the tourism industry while aiding recovery – particularly clearing national parks and nature reserves. A win-win for the Nature Island.