Puerto Rico & Caribe: The Game of Hurricanes

Food, culture and love for Puerto Rico

Right now, at the height of hurricane season, the country or U.S. territory of Puerto Rico and its neighbors Dominican Republic, Haiti, the Virgin Islands, St. Martin, Cuba, Antigua and Anguilla are being bombarded by Hurricane Irma. Barbuda has lost 98% of its infrastructure while St. Martin's capital Phillipsburg was half destroyed. Bahamas lost its shoreline in a freak water vaccuming by Irma. Barbuda's joint island of Anguilla was also 70% destroyed along with its capital. The Virgin Islands both St. Croix and St. Thomas and Tortola are now facing 50% of infrastructural damage, hundreds of uprooted large tress that normally prevent soil erosion and destruction caused by hurricanes and destroyed roads in the capitals and a shortage of water, food, gasoline and shelter. These are rich Caribbean islands that rely on tourism and natural beauty for economic reasons. They are regularly advertised to tourists as the ultimate destination vacations so is Puerto Rico and Dominician Republic. It appears that the other storm that was gaining strength Jose, has dropped to a Category 1 but is hanging around Bahamas and Katia. It is telling that the feared triple threat hurricanes all have Spanish names.






This hurricane comes on the heels of another devastating Hurricane Harvey that delivered a nightmare to Texas' largest city and metropolis Houston. Puerto Ricans have been preparing and scrambling to find limited shelters and refuge with relatives even before Hurricane Irma made landfall on the island of 3.4 million people. The island is a major tourist destination not only for U.S. visitors but for neighbouring countries and large world. Many of the cruises that leave San Juan had to be cancelled along with flights. One Carnival cruise ship chose to keep sailing without a port of call after being caught on the sea and unable to return to is scheduled Caribbean port to avoid Hurricane Irma altogether. To add insult, many airlines cruelly and selfishly increased the prices for departure flights from Florida to $1,000 putting profit over the lives of everyday people. Rising sea levels and floods have long been a threat to island nations not only the Caribbean but in the Pacific region as well where many island countries have lost both infrastructure and land to the ocean and annual increases in dangerous typhoons and tsunamis. Despite the decades of experience with hurricane preparedness and evacuations, nothing could have prepared any survival instincts for Irma.

Hurricane Irma a massive wake up call to the Climate change deniers

Now, after the over $100 billion in damage Harvey has caused, Hurricane Irma has caused insurmountable damagw to numerous cities and islands in the United States and the Caribbean. Mother Nature is proving to be more of a national security threat (if it wasn't already) to Puerto Rico, Caribbean and U.S. than North Korea and terrorism. The more superstitious people would say that the back to back hurricanes was an omen from the joyous Solar Eclipse on August 21st. It crossed entire continental the United States (rarity on many levels) bringing the country together for a brief amount of time. Or that the universe particularly the environment is trying to open the eyes of the climate deniers across the country to Earth's environmental destruction, global warming, the petro pollutions in the Gulf and the contaminated waters in Flint, Beaumont, TX, Florida and the Caribbean islands. As with every hurricane that heads toward the United States, each one passes through the Caribbean like a pinball machine. The Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico has helped to grow many hurricanes from category 1 to at the most category 3. A category 4 or 5 hurricane is generally a once in a few years event and tends to cause more damage to the Caribbean or Caribe than to the United States. As mentioned before, Cuba, Antigua, Bahamas, etc all have experience with dangerous hurricanes and systems in place to save ordinary citizens who aren't able to flee or are caught off guard by 185 mile winds.

Author's Note: Until Harvey, the United States had not experience such a massive scale of destruction from hurricanes since Katrina flooded New Orleans in 2005 and revealed to the world the gross first world and third world situations in the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans. Louisiana has since returned to Texas to help the people of the fourth largest city in the U.S. through ordinary people, the good Samaritans, Cajun Navy, fire department, National Guard, etc.