The season of prayer
Last week this time Bermuda was bracing for the possible impact of Hurricane Fiona. Not just any old run of the mill Hurricane but a deadly Category 4 (Cat 4) weather system. The intensity of a Cat 4 system has shown itself to be destructive beyond belief.
Recent victims of Hurricanes Irma and Maria would be Barbuda, St Maarten/St Martin, Anguilla, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominica and Turks and Caicos Islands in 2017. Then in 2019, Hurricane Dorian literally destroyed Abaco in The Bahamas. Suffice it to say, had Fiona made landfall, we would have had a similar experience as we did with Hurricane Fabian in 2003.
Fiona
By the grace of God Fiona veered to the west of us.
Over 29,000 customers lost their electrical supply, some marine vessels became submarines, and we lost a bit of foliage. Apart from that, Bermuda emerged unscathed. This is largely due to our rigid building codes that have stood the test of time for a few centuries.
Our neighbors in the Canadian maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and other areas were not so lucky. Their building codes are not designed for Hurricanes, much less Cat 4 Hurricanes. So, unfortunately a lot of their structures did not survive.
Ian
Less than 5 days after Fiona passed us by, Hurricane Ian was taking square aim at our sister Overseas Territory of the Cayman Islands. Fortunately for them, the Hurricane veered to the west, sparing them from extensive flooding and untold infrastructure damage. In total they had less than 500 persons out of power.
Unfortunately, for Cuba and Western Florida, Ian made landfall.
In Cuba, the entire electrical grid collapsed leaving over 10 million persons in darkness. Florida saw the mandatory evacuation of 3 million persons from the west coast. Subsequently, thousands of utility workers have been mobilised to restore power in both of these locations.
Climate change
The sad reality is that Climate Change is with us for the foreseeable future. To save on oil costs, many European nations are now forced to fire up closed coal fired plants. The net result is the heating up of the Earth’s atmosphere.
Both Bermuda and Cayman Islands dodged two separate hurricanes thus far. Canada, Cuba and Florida, not so lucky. Perhaps, just perhaps, it is now sinking in that we are in a climate crisis.
Stay prepared, this Hurricane season still has another few weeks to go.
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4 Responses to “The season of prayer”
Burning oil coal or natural gas is basically the same thing - they are all fossil fuels (abeit gas is 'better' than oil which is 'better' than coal) and will contribute to climate change, and in the BVI we use diesel to run our national grid generators.
Also, let's not just blindly blame the europeans without recognising either a. the science, or b. the fact that the 3 biggest emissions polluters are China, India and USA...