#TurksandCaicos, December 4, 2017 – Providenciales – The Atlantic Hurricane Season officially ended on Thursday November 30 and the Director of the DDME, in a one on one with Magnetic Media counted it a tremendous learning opportunity and a completely unprecedented experience for the Turks and Caicos Islands because every island and cay was severely impacted by record breaking storms in September 2017.
Dr Virginia Clerveaux hails from South Caicos and said the most emotional time for her was flying over her home island, where all but one structure suffered no damage. She credits the TCIs brilliant bounce back to planning, preparation and community, corporate, civic and government synergy.
“Driving around in areas that were impacted and recognizing how quickly we are recovering, I must say that it took a lot for us to achieve this, and credit is definitely due to the government of Turks and Caicos Islands. The Public Sector of course, the Private Sector, the various NGO’s, and the agencies, both donor agencies and regional and international agencies that were here working with us, to ensure that we were able to progress and progress quickly, but it also took vision, because you could have had all of these resources and you could have been overwhelmed if you did not have a vision as to how you wanted the recovery process to go. If you did not have strong leadership in all sectors, not just within the departments or within the government, but also the Private Sector.”
The TCI, according to a CDEMA report was with near 80% of buildings damaged; less talked about was the extreme coastal erosion – several feet of sand is missing from our popular stretches including Grace Bay Beach.
“…such as our beaches that we have to think about, and being a country that depend on tourism, it means therefore that we have to begin to ensure that as much as possible we protect the natural resources like the mangroves, the beaches, we protect them not only for the economy but also because they play a role in reducing storm surge, and acting as a natural barrier for hurricanes as well as tsunamis.
There were 17 named storms, nearly $370b in damages and lives lost were put at 441 this past hurricane season for the Atlantic Basin. Today, the tropics remain quiet.
#MagneticMediaNews
#ddmegivesstormseasonwrapup
