Because most of the Caribbean islands lie well within the Atlantic Hurricane Belt, hurricanes are very common during the hurricane season (May to December). Ramnanan (1993) reports that the variability of Caribbean tropical cyclone activity is quite large . At the time of writing (September, 1995), six hurricanes have devastated several of the smaller islands and most of the sugar crop of Dominica in what is already the worst hurricane season in 50 years.
Still fresh in our minds is Hurricane Hugo, which caused considerable damage just a few weeks after the 1989 Caribbean Geological Conference in St. Croix which tragically destroyed our host's Fairleigh Dickinson West Indies Marine Laboratory. Cambers (19 94) reported 10 m high breakers on the leeward side of St. Vincent during that hurricane, and serious permanent beach losses to Westcoast beaches of Dominica after Hugo Hurricane showing its destructive coastal erosion effect. On the other hand, it virt ually cleaned most of the beaches on N. Jamaica, especially Discovery Bay, from a pernicious cover (up to 10 kg/m) of tar that had lingered there after a 1986 oil spill. A rapid response report of the damage to Jamaica of Hurricane Gilbert, September 12,1988, is given in UNEP-CEP/TR/4. Hurricane damages to Margarita reef off SW Puerto Rico are detailed by Lugo-Fernandez et al. (1994).
Fortunately, in the USA hurricane warnings can be made relatively early, and accuracy was reportedly improved by some 20%, (with drastic improvements predicted in NOAA's most recent homepage on World Wide Web) but nevertheless, some 200,000 people were ev acuated "needlessly" from the Outer Banks of North Carolina during the frantic 1995 hurricane season. Because of warnings, death tolls have dropped drastically, but with rising affluence and coastward migrations, property damages can be extraordinary (in the billions of US dollars) and considerable disputes rage on account of bankruptcies of insurance companies.
Lack of predictability is prompting insurers to hike both premiums and deductibles in an effort to cover increased risks. Twenty-one out of the 25 largest catastrophes in the USA, in insured terms, have occurred in the last decade, 16 of which involved hu rricanes. The biggest disaster of all, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, cost insurers about US $17 billion (Frank Nutter, in Christian Science Monitor, March 29, 1995). Caribbean islands should be able to take advantage of NOAA's research and monitoring efforts , though there appear to be no formal cooperative efforts in this area (Lockridge, 1995). Emergency Preparedness Agencies in the Caribbean can benefit from discussions and case studies made in the USA (Doehring et al., 1994; Kopperman & Davies, 1987; Villanueva 1994).
The number of deaths which can be attributed to hurricanes in the Caribbean is shown in Figure 4 and includes estimates for the historic hurricane of 1780 responsible for over 20,000 deaths. Hurricane Flora, which hit Cuba and Haiti in 1963, caused some 8,000 deaths (Rappaport & Fernandez-Partagas, 1995).
In our survey, hurricane hazard ratings showed a bimodal rating effect with a mean of 2.63 on a scale of 5 (most serious) and were highest (more than one third of respondents rating it 4 or 5) for Montserrat, St. Kitts, UVI and Puerto Rico. Undoubtedly, ratings would sky-rocket had our survey been made just a few weeks later.
On October 13, l995 Dr. Gillian Cambers wrote that she had just returned
from Anguilla and Nevis where her network had already collected good
post-hurricane(s) data ... "The damage is spectacular and we are really
going to have to re-evaluate setbacks in these islands." Although the
resilience of the people is shown by the fact that "... we see people
rebuilding in the same spot even before the Planning people have fully
assessed the damage," the need for stronger measures to prevent damage is
clear.
Here is a map with the 1995
Atlantic Hurricane tracks
NOTE added July 22, 2002: for 1995 Archives, clickhere
