What will happen to the caribbean in 2017

Dominica has been rebuilding its education system in the aftermath of Maria and preparing for the coming hurricane season. The rebuilding has not just been taking place in the physical sense, but also in terms of preparing teachers and students to respond appropriately during a natural disaster like a hurricane. The people of Dominica are not alone. Across the islands of the eastern Caribbean, citizens, communities and governments are developing ways to improve their hurricane readiness.

And the UN is playing a major part in helping them to become more resilient, and better able to withstand the next season, as extreme weather events grow in frequency and scale. The eastern Caribbean islands are no stranger to life-threatening weather conditions. In its Caribbean Outlook report , ECLAC recommended that governments in the region improve resilience by undertaking recovery and reconstruction assessments.

Following the back-to-back batterings from Irma and Maria, Dominica has taken this message on-board. To reach this goal, the Dominican Government created a task-force to determine best practice across every sector and enforce new disaster mitigation measures throughout the island.

The UN played an important role and, even in the very early days of the humanitarian recovery efforts, started planning for resilience. In addition, the UNDP looked at existing building standards and, where necessary, reviewed them and raised them to bolster resilience.

We are supposed to be the same status as Gibraltar or the Falkland Island. If we are indeed supposed to be in a partnership then it should work far more effectively than it is doing now. Anna Baltimore Thompson, who was rescued along with her family as Irma battered Barbuda, has called for the island to be evacuated before Hurricane Jose is forecast to hit at the weekend.

This has been horrific, terrifying, a terrible experience. Me and my family of seven, including an infant of two months, had to shelter in a closet. Before the hurricane-force winds began the roof had already gone from our premises and we had to go for shelter. The fireman and police officers came to our rescue and took us to a shelter. My main concern is how we are going to survive after this. Every house, every [piece of] infrastructure, every utility is completely damaged and gone.

And possibility of another hurricane heading in our direction is terrifying. I think we should evacuate. Play Video. Key events Show 2. Live feed Show. Newest Newer. Older Oldest. The key points from the latest warnings are Hurricane warnings are still in place the Dominican Republic; Haiti; the south-eastern, central and northwestern Bahamas; and the Turks and Caicos islands Irma remains a category five hurricane with winds of mph kph and storm surges of up to 20ft 6m of water.

The centre is forecast to pass north of the coast of Hispaniola the Dominican Republic and Haiti later today, and be near the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas by this evening local time. By Friday it will hit near the Central Bahamas. A hurricane watch also remains in place for parts of Cuba. Facebook Twitter. Foreign office minister Alan Duncan will give a Commons statement on the disaster. September 7, Matthew Weaver.

Claire Phipps. Hurricane Irma, still a category five storm with sustained wind speeds of mph kph is moving away from Puerto Rico and heading towards the Dominican Republic and Haiti , which it is forecast to hit on Thursday.

Eight people are so far reported to have died as the hurricane ripped through the Caribbean: a two-year-old in Barbuda, one person in Anguilla, and six in the French part of St Martin.

It is feared the death toll will rise. Massive damage has been reported across the islands already savaged by the storm, with homes and critical facilities flattened, power failures and communications down. In the aftermath of Irma and Maria, a UN-wide Crisis Management Unit sent waste management and debris removal experts into the affected areas, opening up roads, collecting garbage, and restoring the water and power networks. Emergency work programmes created temporary jobs and training for affected women and men, quickly injecting cash into communities.

Small businesses were given grants to help them to recover: On the Turks and Caicos Islands, the large majority of MSMEs Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises were severely impacted by the hurricanes, and the UN supported a wide range of businesses, from pest controllers and farmers, to taxi drivers and people renting out holiday homes. Like 70 per cent of the inhabitants of South Caicos, Henry Handfield relies on fishing for a living.

The top of the engine was smashed up, the roof was destroyed…all I had was the hull of this boat. I was able to take that and put with some other monies to remodel this boat.

Financial support also came in the form of an innovative direct cash transfer scheme, which puts money directly in the hands of affected families. Yvonne Hill Williams lives in Roseau, Dominica. A shopkeeper and foster carer who also looks after her five grandchildren, Yvonne lost all of her merchandise when the nearby river overflowed during Hurricane Maria.

You feel that you can buy certain things in town. In Dominica, the priority for women farmers was to be able to get back on their feet as soon as possible.