The Turks and Caicos Islands suffered the effects of being in the path of two meteorological systems within a very short space of time. First, Tropical Storm Hanna hit the island over an extended number of days from Sunday 31 August to Wednesday 3 September 2008. The path of this system was erratic and it effectively circled the chain of islands for the period reported, bringing torrential rainfall and resulting in major flooding in many of the communities of these islands. The second system was Hurricane Ike which passed just south of the Turks and Caicos Islands on 6 September, as a Category 4 hurricane, with 135 mph winds, affecting primarily the Turks Islands and South Caicos as a result of its path. The Islands suffered no loss of life but there was much displacement of persons who sought refuge in shelters and at the homes of family and friends. The Turks and Caicos Islands can be satisfied that the social construction of the society, with some 65% of the population being defined as Non-Belongers, did not disrupt the emergency response to the events in any significant way. All persons requiring safety, shelter or food support were provided with such, despite the challenges faced by rapid growth of the TCI population from 19,886 in 2001 to 33,202 in 2006.
In all, 31% of the population or 10,270 people were affected by Tropical Storm Hanna and Hurricane Ike, with 2% of the population or 825 people being severely affected. The total impact of Tropical Storm Hanna and Hurricane Ike on the Turks and Caicos Islands was estimated at $213.6 million. This amount is a bit conservative, as data limitations in some sectors did not allow for a full accounting of impacts on them. However, this amount provides a good estimate of the substantial impact of the disaster. Given the scale, duration and intensity of the two events, the usual expectation is that the total impact would have been higher. Nevertheless, as a result of the fortuitous situation where Providenciales, the main growth island with the highest cost capital stock, was spared the ravages of the disaster, the financial impact was not as high as would be expected for this scale of hydrometrical event. Notwithstanding this, there was significant social fall-out that could hurt people’ s livelihoods in the short to medium term, and also major environmental damage in an already fragile ecological environment
Housing
Approximately 33% of the stock of dwellings was damaged in the Turks and Caicos
Islands, with the majority of the housing stock some 69% remaining undamaged. Of those that were damaged, 2% were totally destroyed.But this does not tell the severity of the story. When the impact of the disasters by Island was examined, it was recognized that some islands such as Grand Turk, Salt Cay and South Caicos suffered damage to virtually every house. Some islands such as
Providenciales, although having a large absolute number of houses damaged, 751, proportionately suffered less damage to its housing stock, 8%, than any of the other islands. The other islands, North Caicos, suffered 67%, and Middle Caicos suffered 49% damage to their housing stock. Such a serious blow to a country’ s housing stock may result from two possibilities: the nature of the event itself and/or the quality of housing. For Turks and Caicos both factors seemed to have played a part in the damage to the housing stock. In the case of Providenciales, its location took it out of the direct impact of the hurricane, although it was affected severely by Tropical Storm Hanna. But the quality of its housing which is newer than that found on Grand Turk or Middle and South Caicos, would have acted as a safeguard in the face of a natural event. Providenciales has experienced a development boom since 1990 and its housing and other structures such as hotels and villas, by and large, possess outer walls built of concrete. It is mainly the poor on Providenciales that can be found in precarious housing conditions.
The engine of growth, tourism, was spared the ravages of the disaster, with the fall-out being mainly in the social sectors and infrastructure. This was reflected in the profile of the impact. Total damage (impact on assets, including stocks) was $119.5 million or 56% of the total impact. Meanwhile, losses, both from income lost and higher contingent spending amounted to $72.0 million or 44% of the total. The contained losses stemmed from the fortune of geography, with the spread of the islands allowing for only modest impact on Providenciales.
The per capita total impact of the disaster at $6119.5 was relatively high, though not close to the $75,000 for the Cayman Islands in the wake of Ivan in 2004. Underscoring the relative weight of the disaster, the total impact represented 25.8% of GDP, 96.2% of tourism GDP, which is quite significant, 54.4% of gross domestic investment, 35% of consumption and 350.6% of public debt, highlighting that debt is still at quite manageable levels. The distribution of impact across the various subsectors of the productive sector, suggests that approximately 57.0 per cent of the total damage and loss was suffered by the tourism subsector while the wholesale and retail trade accounted for 31.4 %
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