Introduction

The small island developing states (SIDS) of the Caribbean have witnessed great upheaval and change over the last decade and a half in part due to the global economic meltdown of 2008 that had a long-lasting and sometimes delayed ripple effect on the countries in the region as tourists all but ceased their travels. Similarly, in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, many jobs in the tourism industry were lost. Then, in 2010, Haiti experienced a catastrophic earthquake that registered some 7.0 magnitude at its epicenter, which killed 230,000, displaced more than 1.5 million people, and racked up some 7.8 billion dollars in damages (World Bank, 2019). The outbreak of Zika and Chikungunya deepened the chaos in some islands (Fischer & Staples, 2014; Seelke, Salaam-Blyther, & Beittel, 2016). The eastern half of Jamaica was obliterated by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, (Planning Institute of Jamaica, 2013), and who could forget the complete wipeout of Barbuda and Dominica as well as absolute devastation in Puerto Rico in 2017 caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, one of which also ravaged Ragged Island in The Bahamas. Recently in 2019, the Abacos, and its capital city Marsh Harbour, and Grand Bahama, two important economic centers after New Providence in The Bahamas, saw almost complete devastation from Hurricane Dorian (Neeley, 2019). Combined in the aftermath, these disasters cost the islands billions of dollars to rebuild (Chow, 2020; IDB, 2019).