FOR AMERICANS, October is Halloween month.
But this year, the horror is not coming from just scary movies, pumpkins and creepy costumes. This year, the horror is real.
“This is something I have never seen in my life,” said Tampa Mayor Jane Castor on October 7 in a television interview, as Florida prepared for Hurricane Milton.
Milton was a storm of such power it made a veteran meteorologist, John Morales, choke up on air as he linked the system to incredibly hot seas and warned viewers, “This is just horrific.”
That horror first formed as a tropical depression on October 5. Hours later, it was a tropical storm. By October 6, it was a category 1 hurricane. A day later, it was category 5.
Creepy satellite images led some to compare its shape to a human skull.
While, eventually, the worst projections did not come to pass, Milton did not go gently into the night. It flooded neighbourhoods, destroyed homes, damaged buildings and left millions powerless. Several people were killed.
A hurricane season that many thought had settled has been completely upended, ushering in a period of remarkable uncertainty and danger.
Milton blew in just weeks after Helene, a category 4 system which devastated Florida’s east coast and parts of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee. At least 200 people are dead, with the numbers expected to rise amid ongoing recovery.
For the first time in recorded history, there were three active hurricanes in the Atlantic basin this late in the season, with Milton, Kirk and Leslie simultaneously spinning on October 6.
And yet the distracted world struggles to address climate change.
America’s experience stands as an ominous warning.
While some TT nationals in Florida this week attested to being “kept in the know” and having no reason to panic, the US is not accustomed to dealing with these disasters so regularly.
The spread of misinformation, aided and abetted by Donald Trump’s politicisation of emergency response, betrays a system being subjected to a serious stress test.
If a large nation can have all these complications, what about our region?
Carriacou in Grenada is still recovering from Beryl. Barbados PM Mia Mottley, at the UN in September, once more drew attention to climate change, pleading desperately for a reset.
Locally, the Prime Minister on October 4 continued to bat for hydrocarbons for the time being, though he acknowledged the climate issue.
But powerful speeches and a country’s disposition to hydrocarbons are not the full extent of an environmental policy.
The region and the world are no closer to a coherent strategy beyond simply signing symbolic agreements and calling – in vain – for green funding.
The storms are dangerous, but the equal danger is continued inaction while the planet boils.
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