It's the end of August which means it is coming to the peak of the storm season in the Atlantic. Hurricane Luara will hit the US soon after causing torrenting rain in the Caribbean, but everybody almost seems to have forgotten that.
In a good week it will be 3 years for me after experiencing hurricane Irma while living in the Caribbean. Not that is haunts me at all, but I do often think back about it. Especially since we have storm Floris (which is a laughingstock naturally after deal with cat 5+ hurricanes) pulling over Holland at the moment. I live more land inward here. The wind isn't bad. But the sound of the wind makes me go back sometimes
It is immens to see how much havoc a storm can wreak especially on wooden structures. What you see on the picture above was a super nice little square in the Maho area of Sint Martin, with the Starz casino behind it (anybody remember the story of the Italian owner embezzeling money?) Also there were some super cute restaurants here including one of some French friends of mine. They licked up their stuff and never came back. Too big liability to start over after losing everything they owned.
Hurricane Irma had winds going up to 300 kilometer per hour, which is as if you have a formula 1 car crashing into your structure the whole time. Not a winner especially if you have a zink roof.
I used to live close to the cruise terminal there and there was a warehouse park across my area. All zink and bend stuff was left over after it. And to see how long it took before companies had the ability to clean all of this up. I get it. This wasn't easy
The Caribbean has been hit hard also again this Covid crisis. So many countries are nearly fully dependent on tourism and when you see this isn't picking up, it leaves them into non resolvable trouble.
I saw a small picture from somewhere in Curacao earlier in the week that it might be an issue for government workers to get their salaries after August (government also includes hospital workers, firemen, policemen and every other civil servants). Now I have no idea if this is a true thing, but honesly..it wouldn't surprise me.
All of these islands have micro economics and turn out to be more dependent than they initially thought. Now don't get me wrong. I like for these islands to be independent, they deserve it! But in terms of how the finance is dealth with, it seems often presumed as if only good times are ahead..not always thinking about what to do when the sh&t goes down. Building some reserves.
It is the same as what a lot of companies here in Holland do as well. With the stats of the first company, they get a loan for a second company. And the stats from this second company they get a loan for a third company. What happens when all of they companies (say restaurants and bars) stop functioning all of a sudden at the same time. Boom...no income, no options to pay the others. Grande problems.
The sky seemed the limit, but you were always capable of looking through these companies' open roof.(nice metafor right). There wasn't really a plan B for when the times are not so good.
But the funny thing is...as an individual..you are expected to save for yourself for when life is not so peachy. But these companies didn't make any reserve, and still often get government funding while working an unsustainble model built on greed and getting more and more. Isn't this weird?
A sinking ship you should take care of yourself. But when it is company owned, you can ask for money for it?
Extreme weather seems to be more and more something of this era and we have to get used to it. We should build more sustainable and invest more in long term to fight the elements.
But is this really in our nature? Or are we just looking for our own perfect sunset and until the elections. Because then 'it isn't our problem anymore'. For us to think about the future we need to start investing in it a bit...without thinking about ourselves to much.