Small island economies face a brutal recovery math: a single storm can erase years of GDP growth in a matter of hours.
For islands like Dominica, Antigua, and the Bahamas, a major hurricane doesn't just damage buildings — it can wipe out a meaningful share of annual economic output overnight, straining national budgets long after the storm has passed. Recovery financing has to move fast, but rebuilding exactly what existed before simply resets the risk for the next season.
“Build back better” has become more than a slogan in the region: reinforced roofing codes, buried utility lines, and hurricane-resistant public buildings are increasingly standard in reconstruction, funded through a mix of insurance payouts, regional catastrophe funds, and international recovery grants.
The most resilient rebuilding also treats critical infrastructure — hospitals, water systems, schools — as the priority tier, since a community's ability to withstand the next storm depends less on any single home than on whether the systems everyone relies on come back online quickly.