The Setting & The Challenge from Mr. Wesley Clerveaux, Chairman of The National Disaster, Recovery Task Force & Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Education

September 2017, will forever be etched in the memories of those who experienced the devastating impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria as two of the most powerful and destructive hurricanes ever recorded in the history of the Atlantic basin. Within two weeks, hurricanes Irma and Maria scurried across the territory impacting every island in the Turks and Caicos Islands chain.

Irma’s winds with speeds recorded as high as 200 miles per hour, caused catastrophic damage to homes, businesses and 85% of critical infrastructure such as water, electricity and telecommunications and severely impacted Government buildings. Approximately 80% of Government offices were displaced and 13 out of 15 Government Public Schools were also severely impacted.

Despite the widespread damage to homes and critical infrastructure, we are indeed grateful that no lives were lost. We have since made much progress in our Recovery, all schools resumed operations within five weeks of impact, water and electricity restored to 100% of residents within six weeks and the rebuilding of homes, businesses and other critical infrastructure is ongoing.

The magnitude of the disaster experienced and our enormous risk, demand a more proactive approach to minimise the risk largely by careful planning, putting in place mitigation measures to lessen future impacts of hazards by hardening existing assets, or, ensuring that existing systems have enough redundancy to keep working and or to recover quickly even if they are disrupted.

This Recovery plan seeks to achieve these broad goals of minimising risk associated with catastrophic events by hardening our assets and infrastructure, implementing mitigative measures and building                resilience across all sectors. 

We would like to further invite relevant stakeholders to join in contributing to Disaster Risk reduction and partner with us as we rebuild a “better and stronger”, resilient Turks and Caicos Islands. As we look forward to the future, let us remember “for every $1 invested in mitigation, it saves a country $7 in recovery and response”.