By: Jim Byers
April 16, 2021
As if a 13-month long pandemic and a looming hurricane season wasn’t enough, some Caribbean countries are now dealing with an active volcano.
Some 16,000 people have had to be evacuated from the main island of St. Vincent and the Grenadines due to the explosion of La Soufriere volcano a few days ago. Ash is covering the island, as well as coating patio furniture, houses and cars on nearby Barbados.
The CTO and retired U.S. general Russel Honore, who led the U.S. Army efforts in Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, held a live Facebook chat on Wednesday to talk about the challenges facing the region.
Honore, a delightful speaker and forceful personality, was outstanding.
“Every generation has its wars to fight,” he said. “Sometimes they’re not always against another nation. It’s against ourselves, against Mother Nature.”
The general noted that some folks seemed reluctant to evacuate St. Vincent, even with the volcano erupting near their homes. That’s just dangerous, he said.
Volcanoes and volcanic ash “can have a permanent impact on your health,” he said.
Honore had strong words about people who don’t pay attention to medical experts.
“What we all can do is wear our masks, keep up our social distancing as well as limiting large gatherings. That’s hard on business but it saves lives. It’s best to live and to weather the impacts of the pandemic by empowering people to be safe and not infect other people.”
He also said more testing is needed.
“Without testing you’re guiding a ship without a compass.”
Honore also said responses to the virus can’t be based on politics or religion.
“We have people hiding under both. We’ve lost over 500,000 citizens in the U.S., and a lot of those citizens didn’t have to die because we had a political ideology that said, ‘Don’t worry about it, it’ll go away.’ And some with the religious ideology that ‘God will take care of me.’ God will help you if you help yourself.”
Anti-vaxxers who believe in “bad science and rumours” also are a problem.
Asked about his experience in the field in the wake of natural disasters, Honore said it’s important that people not rely entirely on government but learn to “be their own first responders.” That means having a plan for hurricanes or other issues and working with your neighbours.
“When I was in the Pentagon, we watched for three days a hurricane going into Cancun. The day the hurricane hit we got calls from the consulate and the ambassador down there (saying) we need to evacuate 3,000 Americans. I said, ‘What in the hell were they doing there? Everybody watched the hurricane coming. Why didn’t they leave? Who the hell is stuck on stupid here?’”
“So, now we’re trying to get more military transports. There’s no mechanism that exists. I’m trying to get airplanes but the airfield is not open. The ships can’t get in.”
“We can’t get be stuck on stupid,” Honore said. “When the hurricane comes the tourists have to leave. There’s no way around it.”
Sometimes hurricanes change course, but Honore said it’s better to evacuate people early and be safe than to be wrong and have people stay and become isolated “and for three days CNN and Sky News are focusing on these poor tourists who didn’t leave hanging onto the side of a hotel.”
Hotels have to be prepared and know what they’re facing.
Honore said Louisiana State University had a football game in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which filled local hotels with fans, on a weekend when people were fleeing New Orleans to avoid Hurricane Katrina.
He also noted that he was touring the Louisiana Superdome a few days after the hurricane hit and ran into a group of Australians who had flown in on Saturday, the day before Katrina made landfall.
He said they told him they checked into their hotel on the Saturday night and were told to leave by hotel management on Sunday.
“I mean, that is stuck on stupid,” Honore said. “Why the hell would an airplane be landing with a hurricane coming to Louisiana? And I’m telling you it happens all the time.
“We cannot put our economic interests in the front of safety.”
This story first appeared in Travel Pulse