PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands; Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 –"This evening marks the passage of one month from Ike. It is a good time to take stock. Much has happened during that period.
First, devastating though the hurricane was, especially in Grand Turk, South Caicos and Salt Cay, we got through it without casualties. Heeding advice to get to shelters or higher ground had a lot to do with this. The contrast between the number of people who went to shelters during Hanna (a maximum of twelve in Grand Turk) and Ike (350 in Grand Turk and over 3000 in TCI as a whole) is striking. The lesson in a territory which had not been ravaged by a direct hit for decades was clear. People must take the threat seriously.
The immediate response phase is now largely over. Though conditions, especially the prolonged breakdown in communications outside Providenciales, were difficult and there was little by way of experience to fall back on, the basic objective of stabilisation was achieved. People had water, food and shelter.
The Government Disaster Management structure, other Government agencies, the Churches and voluntary sector, notably the Red Cross, and the private sector all played their part; and I would like to pay tribute to them all here.
The Royal Navy in the immediate response phase and the Bermuda regiment, after them, played valuable supporting roles, as did a number of international agencies, including the UN family, regional organisations such as CDERA and PAHO, the UK Department for International Development, the international and UK Red Cross and the US Coastguard, who contributed in cash, kind or human resources during that phase.
Above all were the people themselves whose resilience and community spirit came to the fore. I remember my first visit to Salt Cay after the hurricane. There were only 55 people on the island at the time. Most of them seemed to be on roofs restoring their homes.
Of course, though the immediate response phase is largely over, much of the work begun during it continues. Electricity lines are not fully connected and telephone landlines have not been restored. These are not, by their nature, tasks that can be completed overnight.
Prioritisation has been necessary – for example to ensure that hospitals, schools and airports were reconnected to electric power as soon as possible. Sometimes, the full extent of the damage has only become apparent, as restoration work has got under way. This has been the case with electricity, for example, where the process of reconnecting public offices has shown how bad the damage was. It also explains why it has not proven possible to open schools as rapidly as was initially hoped.
I was asked in a radio interview the other day whether it was true that it would take months for Grand Turk to return to normal; and, if so, how that was to be squared with other reports that the island was returning to normal. My answer was that both statements are true. Grand Turk, which I know best of the most affected islands, is returning to normal in important ways.
Much of the debris is cleared, government offices are open and providing services to the public; banks were reopening barely a week after the hurricane; people are increasingly buying food and other goods from shops – all of great importance to the life and economy of the island.
But, of course, if our standard is the complete rehabilitation of buildings and infrastructure destroyed or damaged by the hurricanes, then we are looking at a much longer period before normality is restored. In the Cayman Islands, for example, the National Recovery Fund is still considering applications for support four years after Ivan struck.
We naturally hope that it does not take anything like that long here. There is good reason to think that it need not. The archipelagic character of the TCI has meant that significant parts of the territory escaped relatively lightly. Although there has been some damage here in Provo, as there has been in all of the islands, the main economic and population centre of the TCI was reopening for business within hours of the hurricane.
It has since served as a significant engine for the recovery process elsewhere in the territory. Whether seen in terms of the gateways provided by the airport and seaport, the work undertaken by the private sector, much of it on a voluntary basis, the reinforcement of the Grand Turk force provided by Provo based Police, or the help given by family based networks, the support to other islands coming from Provo has been remarkable and we are all very grateful for it.
We are now moving into the recovery and rehabilitation phase. The UN ECLAC team who have been in the islands these past ten days to assess the full economic cost of Hanna and Ike made an initial presentation of their findings to Cabinet this morning and should provide a full report very shortly. This will help inform Government action in the months to come and, I hope, provide a basis for outside partners to lock into."
