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No US hurricane agency anticipated that the hurricane force Helene left behind so many deaths in the southeast of that country: 227 between September 26 and 27. And there will be more, as rescuers continue searching for dozens of missing people. More than half of the victims lived in North Carolina, where the force of the wind and rain devastated entire towns and left millions of homes without power.
Helene caused material damage in 15 more states. The latest update of data on those caused to homes and commercial premises and/or small industries fluctuates between 30,500 and 47,500 million dollars. But less than half had insurance against hurricane damage. Helene It is thus the deadliest cyclone since Katrina, in 2005.
Last week, another hurricane, Miltoncaused 16 deaths and severe damage as it passed through the state of Florida. It was not as lethal as thought, but there two years ago Ianleft multimillion-dollar losses in agriculture and in buildings, personal property as well as public and private infrastructure. Milton hit Tampa and neighboring towns and it will take time to determine the economic damage it caused, especially in areas already affected by Helene.
As for Mexico, next October 25th marks one year since Otiscategory 5, made landfall in the city of Acapulco. Although there were previously several warnings about its possible arrival, neither the authorities of the three levels of government nor the population prepared to face a natural phenomenon of such dimensions.
According to estimates by the Engineering Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, 274 thousand homes, more than 47 thousand businesses, 1,224 schools and 80 percent of hotels had severe to minor damage. Hospitals and health centers did not escape the previous situation. The official number of deaths is 50, in addition to dozens of missing people. Economic losses amounted to more than 16 billion dollars.
Otis revealed the lack of clear regulations by government agencies on the construction of urban infrastructure; the chaotic expansion of the city towards areas classified as fragile and/or dangerous, where thousands of poor families made their homes. No hotel or residential building in the coastal area had adequate hurricane protection systems. Neither do commerce and businesses linked to the daily life of almost a million people and tourism activity, Acapulco’s main source of income.
And almost a year later, on September 27, the intense rains left by the hurricane Johncaused Acapulco to be declared a disaster area again. Thousands of families lost everything and also in other parts of Guerrero and Michoacán. The rains affected around 109 thousand people and 27 thousand homes in 28 municipalities of Guerrero. In the port of Acapulco there are about 40 thousand homes affected and more than 130 thousand victims.
John showed that the measures adopted last year in that city and neighboring towns to alleviate the damage left Otis They are the same ones that distinguish the current urban growth model: obsolete in every sense. Firstly, for not taking into account the problems that hurricanes and torrential rains will bring to that part of Guerrero in the future. The most affected, as always, are the lowest-income families.
It is not just a problem in Mexico. In the United States, the four destructive hurricanes that have occurred this century show that government agencies do not take into account the need to change the current energy model and, at the same time, the territorial occupation model, in order to avoid deaths and damage to public infrastructure and the economy.
And the fundamental thing: in both countries, what governments dedicate to combating climate change (which causes warming of the oceans, the source of more frequent and destructive hurricanes) does not represent even 0.2 percent of what it costs to rehabilitate the affected areas. . It is forgotten again that it is much more convenient to prevent natural disasters as much as possible (mostly due to human activities) than to alleviate the problems they cause.
