Hurricane Irma and the response to it

Background
The Caribbean is known for it's cyclones and hurricanes. It has, and always will be planning to survive such an event. Hurricane Irma was the worst ever as of September 2017.

Barbuda, like many of the smaller Caribbean islands, is a coral island rising a mere 125 feet (38 meters) above sea level and is thus more vunrible to any exstreem weather events that hit it, unlike the bigger islands like Jamacia and Cuba.

All the islands it hit and the US state of Florida had ordered either mandatory evacuations to safer land and\or the usual boarding up of windows and stockpiling of supplies such as medicine, food, water, batteries and so forth.

On Barbuda, authorities ordered an evacuation of all 1,400 people to neighboring Antigua the day befor the storm hit.

The French had an emergency generator and equipment on the island awaiting such useage, while the Dutch had nothing on the island of St Martin.

The hurricane it's self
Hurricane Irma was the most powerful hurricane ever to hit the Atlantic, with Cuba reporting record wind speeds of between 180 mph and 160 mph (260 kph) and St. Maarten reporting wind speeds of 185 mph. Barbuda was hit by winds of up to 157 mph (252 kph). The hurricane hit across most of the region devastating buildings, transportation, utilities and national infrastructure.

It first emerged as a tropical low over the island of Ilha Formosa of the coast of Guinea Bissau on August 27th and became noteworthy as it went out to sea on the 28th.

The damage, deaths and injuries caused

 *  Officially, 21 were dead by 2pm UTC on September 9th! 
 * 1) Indipendent nations:
 * 2) Dominican Republic- Low destruction levels. 2(?) dead.
 * 3) Bahamas,
 * 4) Dominica,
 * 5) Haiti- Negligible destruction levels levels. 1(?) dead.
 * 6) St Vincent and The Grenadines- Low destruction.
 * 7) St Lucia- Low destruction.
 * 8) Barbados- Minimal damage. The 16 year old surfer Zander Venezia was killed riding wave during Hurricane Irma in a shallow reef at a popular, but difficult to master surfing beach called Box by Box on September 5th.
 * 9) Cuba,
 * 10) Jamaica- Negligible destruction levels levels.
 * 11) Antigua and Barbuda- Antigua ~50% damage, Barbuda ~95% damage. 1 dead on each island.
 * UK:
 * 1) Cayman Islands- Negligible destruction levels levels.
 * 2) Montserrat,
 * 3) Turks and Caicos Islands,
 * 4) Anguilla- 100% destruction.
 * 5) British Virgin Islands- ~95% destruction and 5 (?) dead.
 * 6) France:
 * 7) St Martin- ~95% destruction, 8(a) or 2 dead.
 * 8) St Bartholomew- 8(a)
 * 9) St Thomas
 * 10) Guadeloupe,
 * 11) Martinique,
 * 12) Netherlands:
 * 13) St Maarten- ~90% destruction, 45 dead.
 * 14) Bonaire/St Eustatius/Saba- Negligible destruction levels levels.
 * 15) Aruba- Negligible destruction levels levels.
 * USA:
 * 1) US Virgin Islands ~90% destruction and 2(?) dead.
 * 2) Porto Rico- Low destruction levels. ~2,000,000 without electricity and many phone lineswere downed. 5(?) dead.
 * 3) Florida
 * 4) Georgia
 * 5) Alabama
 * (a)= A combined, pan-colony official death toll.

UK's response to Hurricane Irma
France and the UK pleged to send substanial aid packages to the region and it began ariving on September 8th.


 *  The UK's aid package included: 
 * 1) 200 shelter kits, each able to support a family of 5.
 * 2) HMS Ocean
 * 3) RFA Mounts Bay
 * 4) 40 Royal Marines and Army Engineers on board tasked with restoring clean water, sanitation, temporary shelter and if required, medical assistance and rebuilding Anguilla's airport.
 * 5) The UK charity, MapAction, sent a 2 person Disaster Mapping Team to the Caribbean to support mapping and information management on site.
 * 6) The British Red Cross and the ICRC sent rescue workers to the islands involved.
 * 7) 2 C17 cargo planes and a Voyager cargo plane, were flying from RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, carrying around 200 Royal Marines, engineers, 2 Puma helicopters and life-saving equipment.
 * 8) £32 million on September 9th, up from £12 million on September 8th.

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The British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said the UK’s response was “very good”.

“I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to know that further damage is imminent.” said Inspector Frankie Thomas of the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda on the 8th in reference to Hurricane Jose's arrival on the 9th.

Political fall out
The Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the foreign affairs committee and international development committee head, and Labour MP Stephen Twigg wrote to Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and International Development Secretary Priti Patel on the 8th criticising the “lack of forward thinking”.

Stephen Twigg said: “Experts and many in the area have been critical of the overall level of relief currently on offer as well as the apparent lack of forward-thinking once the storm’s route to Florida became more than just a possibility.”

Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, criticised the speed of the Government’s response to the growing crisis in their dependencies (colony with a large degree of home rule) after Hurricane Irma on the 8th.

Criminality on St Martin\St Maarten
The island is historically split in half between the north, which is a French collectivity (territory), and the south which is a part of the Netherlands proper. The French allready had some emergency generators and rescue equipment on the island awaiting such useage, while the Dutch had nothing.

The Dutch side's airport is only open to occasional light aircraft and helicopters, the French half's airport is only open to helicopters and thire desalination plant is back in operation.

The Dutch abandoned thire half until troops were sent in on the 7th after starving crowd went out looting for survival, followed by the inevitable general breakdown of law and order. This general lawlessness and looting of high-end consumer goods and up-market sofas spread to the French half, so the governor called in specialist police from the French mainland to back up the local police units and help defend arriving French aid workers. A curfew and martial law were declared in both haves during the 8th and 9th to quell the looting and rioting.

Looting and gunshots were reported on St. Martin, and a precautionary curfew was imposed in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The long term consequences
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UK government phone line

 * Foreign Office hotline for people affected: 020 7008 0000.