Hurricane-hit Dominica hurries to prepare for next storm season

By Michelle Nurse On Feb 1, 2018

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The Caribbean island of Dominica, still reeling from Hurricane Maria last September, is on the “frontline of the war on climate change” and has only five months to prepare for the next hurricane season, its foreign minister said.

“Time is not on our side,” Francine Baron told an event in London, adding that the tiny island nation of 71,000 people is taking steps to “build back better” after last year’s disaster.

The top-strength storm killed at least 14 in Dominica, and caused damage worth $931 million, according to a government report.

“No part of the island was spared – every single sector and every single family was negatively affected by this hurricane,” Baron told Tuesday’s discussion on the Caribbean region’s resilience to disasters.