Written for www.opendemocracy.net, September 22nd, 2005 by Maggie Lee.

Many Caribbean communities have faced the challenge of recovering from natural disaster. Maggie Lee visits Grenada, devastated by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and is surprised by the creative recovery plans of the “island of perpetual potential”.

The small eastern Caribbean island of Grenada gained fleeting international notoriety (and some sympathy) when the implosion of its revolutionary government led to a United States invasion in October 1983. But its people are more accustomed of late to the violence of nature than of politics. My recent visit to the island suggests that their experience of recovery from hurricane Ivan a year ago may offer wider lessons.

The category-3 hurricane that hit the island on 7 September 2004 was the worst storm to hit the island since hurricane Janet in 1955. Ivan killed twenty-eight people and made a third of Grenada’s 105,000 people homeless. The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) estimates that around 90% of nutmeg plantations – which account for half of Grenada’s export earnings – suffered damage.

“We were caught absolutely napping. There was no coherent disaster recovery plan in place at the time”, says Andrew Bierzynski, director of the merchants Renwick, Thompson & Co. “As so often in the past, we thought that Ivan would come by, take a look at Grenada, figure we had enough problems of our own and leave us alone!”

It is midway through the May-to-November hurricane season. In his office in the capital, St George’s, Bierzynski recalls the “devastating and tiring” aftermath: “It took almost six weeks to regain full power across our seven offices and we probably lost a couple of million (Eastern Caribbean / EC$) dollars of stock in the process – let alone revenue.”

Bierzynski and his family survived by barricading themselves in a basement room of their home, but their property too was destroyed. He is still rebuilding both home and business. “If another hurricane hit now, we wouldn’t just be flat on our feet, we’d be flat on our rear”, he says.

Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf coast of the United States is only the most dramatic recent incident in an annual regional display of death and destruction that some experts attribute to global warming. Whatever the proximate causes, a disaster on the scale of Ivan, Katrina or Rita severely tests any country’s resilience; and when it impacts on a small island like Grenada, human and social resources are pushed to the limit.

Grenada has been luckier than some post-colonial states. Since independence from Britain in 1974, the fertile former French and British territory has sustained the basics of an agricultural export sector: nutmeg, bananas, cocoa, and mace. But the country is buffeted by global trade politics as well as hurricane winds: Grenada’s banana sector is especially vulnerable to the quotas and tariffs imposed by the United States and European Union.

Augustine Vespree of the Grenada Co-operative Nutmeg Association (GCNA) acknowledges the difficulties facing Grenada’s 10,000 farmers, most of them working small plots averaging 2.5 acres.

“Many of our members are in their late 50s and were relying on their nutmeg plantations to provide them with a pension. It will be difficult for them to recoup their losses, as it takes seven-to-ten years for a tree crop to mature and bear produce.”

Yet “Brother Vespree” (as he announces himself to colleagues on the phone) also thinks Ivan has presented opportunities for a more strategic view of Grenada’s agriculture:

“We have the opportunity to replant trees that are more wind-resistant, that have taproots; we can also think more carefully about how we supply different markets like the pharmaceutical industry, and hopefully rotate our crops so they yield income for the farmers throughout the seasons.”

The hurricane has also acted as a catalyst for Grenada’s main non-agricultural revenue source: the tourism industry. Many local hoteliers have now upgraded their services and made their properties hurricane-proof. It is a slow process, but Ian Dabreo of the hotel association is upbeat:

“We have far more robust disaster plans in place now and have had the opportunity, through training and seminars, to prepare owners and staff. Roof structures have been altered and new buildings have much firmer foundations.”

Dabreo returned to run the family business in his birthplace after twenty-four years in Toronto. He is critical of the “old colonial view” of some employers but believes that sponsored training can raise the standards and status of tourism employees. “A change in attitude is vital if we are to compete effectively with Barbados”, he says. “Ivan provided the wake-up call.”

Sherri-Ann Adams, who spent seven years developing a company specialising in adventure tours, lost her business but is grateful to have survived Ivan. She vividly recalls going out to help others after a traumatic night and pays tribute to the regional telecommunications company:

“Digicel were fantastic – not just in getting the network back up and running but also on a humanitarian level, flying in food and parcels for people. They recognised how important communication was to people. If your phone was damaged they gave you a new one, along with 50 EC$ [around $19] free credit. They also paid their staff double wages that month.”

Adams is determined to rebuild but worries about how the Caribbean single market economy (CSME) due to launch in January 2006 will affect small and medium-sized enterprises like hers. “Interest rates have always been high for us here in Grenada, but the 11-to-14% charged by the commercial banks make things especially tough when companies in Barbados can borrow money at around 6%. We’re all trying to get on an even playing-field, and its hard.”

A political storm

A former United Nations aide and regional expert told me that the likely beneficiaries of the CSME are the economically most developed Caribbean islands (Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago). This suggests that the “Ivan effect” might be political as well as economic: “We live in a region where it’s in the interests of states like Trinidad & Tobago, which has gas and oil, to ensure that their smaller neighbours are viable.” He confirms that post-Ivan, the concept of a union between Trinidad & Tobago with St Vincent and Grenada has been gaining credence in political circles in the larger state.

One consequence would be an end to immigration and labour restrictions across the islands:

“We wouldn’t then have a situation whereby lots of illegal immigrants enter Trinidad from the small islands to work. These people help build the economy of Trinidad, and Trinidad helps support them. It makes sense to recognise this and remove the stigma of illegal immigrant. It’s down to us in this region to help each other.”

The theme of interdependence emerges strongly from many conversations in Grenada. Everyone I met was grateful for the aid they received from their island neighbours after the hurricane. “The outpouring of help was overwhelming”, says Andrew Bierzynski. “People, ordinary families, got in their boats and came with food and supplies as soon as they could.” Caribbean states offered to take children into secondary schools, pay public servants’ salaries for certain periods and house prisoners. Venezuela’s government sent food and medicines, and personnel to repair schools and prisons.

But it was not all harmony and solidarity. “There was a period of a few weeks when social order broke down”, says Bierzynski. “It reminded me of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. People were arriving in BMWs and Hondas to steal. The veneer of civility was shown for what it was, a veneer. I was so disappointed. I thought we would have seen more of the caring, sharing side of the nation.” The Trinidadian government had to send troops to help restore law and order.

Andrew Bierzynski faces the future with Grenadian optimism.

“Things always get better after they have been bad. We thought it was the end in 1983, when Maurice Bishop, the prime minister, was killed. We learned not to rely on anyone, let alone the government, and to make our own contingency plans. We came through then, we’ll do so now.”

Will hurricane Ivan prove to be a catalyst of progress in Grenada? Hurricane Emily in July 2005, which killed one person and inflicted further physical damage, is a further reminder to Grenadians of the precariousness of the climate that surrounds them. But the impressive way that its people have responded to natural calamity suggests that, at least, their country deserves to be known as more than a footnote in the cold war.

Read the article here.