Hello and sorry for the rather lengthy post but I do hope you'll take the time to read the whole thing now!
So a brief recap for those of you who may not have heard, from late evening on Friday to the wee hours on Sunday morning, Hurricane Tomas hit St. Lucia. More than just being a category 1 (I've heard it reached 2 at some point, but can't find that in writing) hurricane, folks are saying that this is the worst hurricane devastation to hit the country in over 20 years. There are a number of reasons why this was so disastrous- here is what happened and why:
#1- Preparation and warning
Until later Friday afternoon, Tomas was not even designated a tropical storm, and was expected to pass a lot further south. This made me feel rather silly on Friday afternoon for going to the grocery and stocking up on fresh water and non-perishable food, but I figured I'd follow the "better safe than sorry" adage. Folks around here were entirely nonchalant about the situation, and there were no locally broadcast warnings. One neighbor even laughed at me and said we would only get a little bit of rain. If I weren't a weather geek who has internet access and checks the radar and forecasts nearly daily, I wouldn't have known anything was headed our way until about 7pm, when the local cell provider Digicel sent a everyone a text saying there was a tropical storm warning. Based on the lack of news, peoples attitudes, and the NOAA weather updates, I emailed folks who might worry and told them to ignore the media hyperbole, and that I, and the island would be fine. Which is what everyone here thought as well. The rest of the weekend, there were no more messages, not on the radio, the TV or anything... no communication. People had no idea what was coming until it hit.
#2- A hurricane is as unpredictable as the... weather.
So, not surprisingly, Tropical Storm Tomas had a mind of his own, and decided not to follow the predictions of the meteorologists. By 8pm on Friday, it was clear that Tomas was strengthening rapidly, both on NOAA's webpage, and from the sounds outside my windows, even though it was still over a hundred miles away. This trend continued, for the rest of the weekend, Tomas intensified quickly, growing stronger and larger by the hour. This was unfortunately combined with the storm slowing down its travel from 20-30 mph to crawling along at 12 mph. So instead of passing by late Saturday afternoon, Tomas and then the hurricanes powerful tail, pounded St. Lucia until about 5am on Sunday morning.
#3- Severe drought + tropical depression + hurricane = landslides, erosion and geophysical instability
This year St. Lucia has been suffering the worst drought in decades. Though most areas have recovered from the drought, the water tables and river beds were not yet back to capacity. Same goes for the banana farming sector, farmers have just seen their crops recovering in the past month from the wasting and low production rendered by the drought. You may remember I mentioned that there was an intense amount of rain when I first arrived in early October from a tropical depression that later became Hurricane Otto. Well soon-to-be Otto dumped buckets of rain on the island, causing massive flooding in some areas. Tomas dumped an even greater amount of rain, combined with strong winds. Thus, severe drought + tropical depression + hurricane = landslides, erosion and geophysical instability. The videos below give some indication of the degree to which slippage and flooding have impacted mainly the southern part of the island (which by the way, is where most of the population and 90% of the farming takes place).
#4 Substandard buildings, shelters and roads
This is a pretty obvious and common problem, many of the homes and buildings here are simply not built with materials or design that can easily withstand the power of a hurricane. There are also many that did and can, but to construct these is costly and results (as usual) in an uneven distribution of those with the least loosing the most. In the road and bridges dept, St. Lucia has been making great efforts to improve their highways and to a great outcome in general. However, there is still only one main road that makes a P around the island, with the tail extending up north by me. Presently, due to landslides, bridge collapses and other road issues, the island is divided into 1/3's and the only way to get around is via the sea.
The results-
Personally, got along through the hurricane just fine. My apartment suffered some flooding, but the kitchen stayed dry, so I just "slept" in there. Yes, I was scared. Not so much that I thought I was going to come to bodily harm per say, more just because I was sitting by myself in a dark house while a hurricane whipped about for 36 hours. The neighbor's lost part of their roof, trees fell down, a window broke upstairs and other things generally broke or became dislodged. It was generally very noisy, and I am so thankful that I was able to text with Jul, who was my link to information (and taught herself hurricane math to do this more accurately), since the power, radio and local phone calls shut down once the storm really got going around 7am Sat.
On Sunday morning as we gingerly emerged from our homes in my neighborhood, people immediately began to help each other clean up. As we began to sweep, mop and towel sop the water up out of my apartment, my neighbor (who had lost her roof prior to the bulk of the storm and consequently had inches of rain blown into her home) turned to me and said "I'm ok, you're ok, to hell with everything else...". This is how we have to take these things she assured me. We spent all day getting water of the 3 houses and I can assure that the best and most effective method is to throw down medium sized towels and then wring them out into a bucket.
Monday the power came back on, and since then, I've been calling folks across the island and hearing reports and the news is not good at all.
Many people lost their lives, including a an entire family who's home was carried by a landslide across a highway and into a deep ravine on the other side. All of the farmers I work with, and pretty much all of them on the island have lost their entire crops. They tell me it will take them 6-7 months before they will be able to harvest and ship bananas as normal, meaning they will be without income for that period. Others have lost their farms entirely due tot eh landslides, and will not be able to continue in the business. The major airport is still closed and one of the 2 largest water reserves has been damaged, so a water shortage is forecast for the near future.
Many things will recover quickly, in the next few weeks. Temporary bridges are already being constructed until long term construction can commence, but for many people, and especially those in the banana industry, the destruction of Tomas is going to be felt for a long time to come. I cannot begin to express their voices as farmers have told me their farms are gone. Suffice it to say, Friday afternoon, with no warning of a pending storm, they knocked off work to enjoy Jounen Kwéyòl, the national holiday weekend celebrating St. Lucian culture and heritage before harvesting their bananas on Monday and Tuesday. Instead of creole food, language and music, Saturday and Sunday brought massive destruction to peoples homes and their livelihoods, leaving farmers families facing months of rebuilding if they are lucky, and the loss of a way of life if they cannot survive the rebuilding period.
I'm going out to visit farms and survey the damage tomorrow with the president of one of the Fairtrade groups I work with. I will post those pictures soon. In the meanwhile, here are a few from my area:
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| Sat morning |
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| My neighbor's roof blowing up, right before it blew off... |
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| No power means cooking by candlelight! |
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| Sat afternoon I had to go outside to explore a little! |
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| My bedroom- I was trying to stem the flow w/ towels and sheets before I realized water was pouring into every room except the kitchen. |
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| Me- amusing myself in the middle of the night in the dark sometime late Sat night/early Sun morning... |
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| Dry bed! |
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| Tree down next to my house- glad it fell that way- behind or to the left and it would have hit someone's house... |
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| Banana plants, not being actual trees, crumple with heavy wind |
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