Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Haiti in the Wake of Ike

Here is another article in the NYT about the devastation in Haiti, left in the wake of four major storms in less than a month: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/world/americas/11haiti.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

One quote that struck me as odd:

"This time, though, there is talk about whether it makes sense to try to recreate the same old place again. Authorities are talking about shifting some of the population away from the lowest-lying areas.

There is discussion of boosting building codes so the next storm — and everyone knows there will be one — does not so easily level flimsy structures. The local emergency operations center was flooded and, Yolene Surena, its coordinator, vowed that the new one will move to higher ground. “We should have done it before,” she acknowledged with a shake of her head."

It seems odd to me to be talking about building code legislation before dealing with mass food insecurity. It seems like there are probably reasons for the "flimsy structures" besides the lack of building codes...

Does anyone else think that this is a strange way to look at the devastation caused by the hurricanes... what Paul Farmer called "very unnatural disasters?"

Just some thoughts.

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