Citation

Pielke RA, Rubiera J, Landsea CW, Fernandez ML, Klein R. Nat. Hazards Rev. 2003; 4(3): 101-114.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, American Society of Civil Engineers)

DOI

10.1061/(ASCE)1527-6988(2003)4:3(101)

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In late October 1998, the remnants of Hurricane Mitch stalled over Honduras and Nicaragua, killing more than 10,000 people and causing as much as $8.5 billion in damage. While Central America and the Caribbean have a history of natural disasters, the fatalities and destruction caused by Mitch were the greatest in at least several decades, prompting many questions including: What accounts for the extent of these losses? Is Mitch a harbinger of future disasters in the region? and What might be done in response? This paper seeks to shed light on these questions by examining the historical and geographic context of hurricane vulnerability in Latin America and the Caribbean. The paper examines trends in economic and other societal factors that increase vulnerability to hurricanes in Central America and the Caribbean and includes a case study of normalized hurricane losses in Cuba made possible by newly collected damage data published herein. The paper places its findings into the context of policies related to climate change and natural hazards. The data and analysis in this paper suggest that the impacts of Hurricane Mitch were not anomalous when compared with a normalized record of past losses. Interrelated human-caused factors such as rapidly increasing populations, widespread poverty, deforestation and urbanization are shown to increase vulnerability to natural disasters such as Hurricane Mitch.