The Caribbean region is experiencing an increasing number of hurricanes, whipped up by climate change. Memories of Hurricane Dorian, which devastated the Bahamas in September 2019, are still fresh. But almost forgotten by the world now is Hurricane Irma, which flattened the tiny Caribbean island of Barbuda in 2017, followed soon after by Hurricane Maria, which caused major destruction to Puerto Rico.
Like most major disasters around the world, there was a media frenzy shortly after Dorian, Maria and Irma – predominantly focusing on the ‘spectacle’ of physical destruction, human agony, and short-term relief operations. Yet the short attention span of mainstream media means that Caribbean people’s experiences of recovery in the long term are ignored.
