Hurricanes and Climate Change
Anjani Ganase reflects on the effects of devastating hurricanes on human communities and wonders if we can adapt before catastrophes force change “I remember Flora. I was 12 years old. Schools were dismissed early. But my father still was not able to pick us up until the usual time. We went from Port of Spain through Maraval and into Santa Cruz on roads without traffic – everyone was home already. The sky was gray and the streets slippery with driving rain. It was my earliest remembered experience of howling wind and bending trees. This impression of powerful nature has never left me; and Trinidad was on the periphery of Flora. I learned of the devastation to Tobago, the destruction of the cocoa plantations and the people who died only after I was old enough to find out.” My mother’s memory of Flora is vivid and forceful. I have lived in proximity to hurricanes all my life, though I have never felt the full force. I’ve only he...