Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
cyclone (to the north of, south of or directly over a
location) will result in different wind (and wave)
directions and very different spatial patterns of
damage.
Stoddart (1971) demonstrated how land use and
island size also affected the scale and nature of reef
island damage in Hurricane Hattie (Table 4.3). All
fifteen islands that were covered by natural vegetation
(a low dense thicket and mangroves) actually aggraded
in net terms as a result of the hurricane, demonstrating
the essentially 'constructional' role of the extreme event
in island building. Most of the islands with coconuts but
with a regenerated thicket also grew, whereas islands
with no or only low undergrowth suffered major beach
retreat or sand-stripping, with two actually
disappearing. Small islands were below the threshold
for survival, disappearing whether or not they were
vegetated. The implied message was clear: if one is to
exploit the cays for coconut production, one should
maintain a natural thicket understorey and clear as little
of the fringing mangrove vegetation as possible.
Table 4.3
Role of vegetation cover in hurricane effects on reef islands in Belize during Hurricane Hattie in 1961.
Source:
After Stoddart 1971.
Note:
Figures refer to the number of cays in each category.
Box 4.2
The impacts of Hurricane Gilbert
sustained some damage. Over 70 per cent of the
private housing and most of the public sector
infrastructure were uninsured. Barker and Miller
(ibid.)
found that the hurricane, which was
personified as 'a bad aggressive male' by Jamaican
society, was also seen as a social leveller, affecting
people's property regardless of income and class.
This point is interesting, as it demonstrates that in
relative economic terms, it is arguably not the very
poor who incur the greatest relative loss but
intermediate societies such as the wealthier
sections of Jamaica, which have more valuable
property and goods, but where their buildings are
neither hurricane-proof nor insured, as they would
be in the more advanced society of the USA.
The impacts that the Class 5 Hurricane Gilbert had
on the 'intermediate' society of Jamaica, which it
crossed east-west on 12 September 1989, have
been analysed by Eyre (1989) and Barker and Miller
(1990). Although loss of life was relatively small (forty-
five deaths), total damage was estimated at
US$800-1000 million, a sum that exceeds the
annual value of exports. Landslide activity resulting
from the 200-400 mm rainfall was exacerbated by
poor agricultural land management, with newly
established coffee projects utilising ill-advised
monocropping on steep slopes in the Blue Mountains
being particularly badly affected. A quarter of the
buildings in Jamaica were rendered unusable, at
least temporarily, and a further 50 per cent
injection of colonial investment funds (Weaver
1968). In the island interior, the previously
economically unproductive rain forest areas,
which were largely felled by the hurricane, were
replanted with fast-growing commercial Blue
Mahot forest plantations. The extra funding also
financed modern harbour facilities and a fishing
industry based on newly discovered offshore
