Mexico Prepares for Emily, Jamaica avoids direct hit...

Mexico is getting prepared for Hurricane Emily, and while this hurricane has had a lot of people on alert it has so far been less damaging than it could have been. Hopefully the the evacuations on the Mexican coastline help minimize the loss of life and injury.

Even as I got word back from Errol in Jamaica, I've been checking the news and it seems that the brunt of it has been missed. Even CNN inadvertently testifies to the resilience of Jamaicans, with a classic quote:

..."Last week it was Dennis, now it's Emily. What's next, Franklin?" Gordon Murphy, 39, joked as his 2-year-old son played at his feet.

"If I'm going to die, it's to going to be right here," he said...

Nowhere to Run

This all got me thinking. People on the islands in the Caribbean are 'trapped'; surrounded by water but more importantly - they are locked in their islands by politics, by borders and by economics. Unlike people who build houses in earthquake zones in California (stupid), people on these islands don't have a choice to live where hurricanes hit fairly regularly. So they save what they can, and they rebuild what they must.