Dr 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 grey 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 heard of the eye of the hurricane, but never seen it. I witnessed the whipping tail winds of Hurricane Ivan as it moved north of Trinidad in 2004, seeing it part trees in the valley like a comb. I was in Florida when Hurricane Wilma dumped water on us for two days. I was still on the outskirts of destruction. There was a lot of flooding, but somehow Walmart remained open for the desperate and ill-prepared college student.
There is a level of anxiety associated with the oncoming hurricane, hour by hour, play by play in the match up of humans and nature. Is it going to weave south? Is it getting stronger?
As I write this, Hurricane Beryl passes north of Tobago and barrels towards Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines, to make landfall four hours later at Carriacou.
With communication at our fingertips, the projections of the path for Beryl are known for two days. She reaches us with high winds and roaring seas, leaves Tobago and Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines without power, houses without roofs, felled trees, beached boats and rubble everywhere.
I can only imagine the terror of those who were expecting the full brunt of a category 4 hurricane.
As part of my research and practice, I have investigated the impacts of hurricanes on coral reefs.
The tropical east coast of Australia, where the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) lies, is regularly exposed to cyclones. I was part of a team sent to investigate the extent of damage caused by Cyclone Ita in 2014. Cyclone Ita was a category 4 when it made landfall along the GBR.
The reefs in the path of destruction were churned over, corals reduced to rubble with large chunks of the reef thrown up on the reef by powerful waves. The turbulent waves scoured and scraped the corals off the seabed and reef life was gone.
What do we know about cyclone trends and global warming?
Hurricanes and typhoons, which are regional names, are all essentially tropical cyclones. While human activities have influenced the recent and rapid increase in global temperatures, the direct effect to changes in hurricane seasons, frequency and intensit
