This grandchildren called the shelter Final Destination, after the popular movie. Tedica Alexander, 61, a resident of Union Island in St Vincent and the Grenadines, recalls with pride – and a tremor in her voice – how her nine grandchildren supported her and others at the Ashton community center when Hurricane Beryl hit the area in July 2024.
Alexander arrived after he realized he was looking for a place to stay in Ashton, instead of going to Clifton school as he expected because it was nearby. As the storm approached, the shed quickly filled up. The building’s windows were shattered, and the floodwaters rose above ankle height. He says: “If it had taken another minute, the door would have been opened.”
His grandchildren remained at the door, braving the wind and rain to let the latecomers in. At one point, she put her head on a pillar and cried, while her six-year-old granddaughter whispered comforting words.
Alexander says: “We were the first to arrive. In the end, 47 children and 147 adults stayed there, including three people who used wheelchairs. Everyone was praying.
This experience marked the beginning of his stay of many weeks at the community center, where Alexander volunteered to take responsibility for cooking and overseeing the general management of the site, with the support of other residents.
The role of caregiver is a familiar one for many women during a natural disaster. However, research shows that it can make the experience more difficult for women, as they often take care of not only themselves but others as well.
In 2022, UN Women reported “evidence of increasing vulnerability of women [due to] the existing social and cultural demands on women and girls as the main caregivers with disproportionate responsibility for caring for the elderly, children and the sick” after a disaster, and that social and gender inequalities cause women and girls to die in a disaster.
While an emergency shelter may be a natural disaster shelter, it provides little protection against violence against women and girls, reports suggest.
A 2021 systematic review, published in BMJ Global Health, looked at studies of violence against women and girls during natural disasters, and found that “post-disaster areas often increase risks”. For example, “the lack of doors, walls and locks in displacement camps increased violence against women and girls in Haiti, Japan and Nepal”. It also suggested that the failure of the law facilitates violence in emergency shelters.
Last year the United Nations Development Programme’s project, Facilitating Gender Responsive Disaster Reduction, Climate Impacts and the Environment in the Caribbean, focused on mainstreaming gender equality and human rights in climate resilience and disaster recovery across nine Caribbean countries. It has encouraged wider geographical expansion, sustained technical and financial support and strong knowledge sharing mechanisms.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has been working to solve the problems that women and girls face in emergency situations, says Loyce Pace, its regional director for the Americas. The organization publishes books that provide guidance to organizations working on the ground during natural disasters.
Pace said such guidance could take the form of “negotiations or advocacy, to be sure [national] governments understand the role they have to play or can have in emergencies, and that they have access to the resources or people or places they need to support their communities the most”.
He says: “In general emergencies, we find that women and children are the most vulnerable.” And mainly because they are among the population that are often left behind or not considered according to their specific needs, or worse, exposed to adverse conditions and thus have poor outcomes.
Pace believes that the Caribbean has reached an acceptable level of implementing adequate provisions for women and girls in emergency situations. “[However] like every organization, especially one that works with volunteers, there is a need for training and constant reminders for the volunteers in charge of these communities to be on the lookout for any area that does not meet these standards,” he says.
Those provisions include safe, private sleeping areas and bathroom facilities, as well as menstrual hygiene products.
Director of the Bahamas Disaster Management Authority, Aarone Sargent, says every effort is made to ensure that emergency shelters are safe and comfortable. He says, security is under the supervision of the Royal Bahamas Defense Force and the government’s public services, “and they provide an excellent service to the refugees”.
However, a strong concern for disaster relief in the Bahamas is to ensure that adequate shelters are available and that they meet acceptable standards, and Sargent believes that the country has shelter for only 3% of its population.
In the most recent emergency evacuation for a hurricane, during Hurricane Melissa last year, about 1,800 people from the southern islands of the Bahamas were moved to the island of New Providence to the north, and stayed in six or seven shelters, while others made other arrangements to stay with families or in hotels, he says.
“We’re working to build and increase that capacity across those islands that are prone to natural disasters, whether it’s wildfires or hurricanes,” says Sargent. “So our goal in the next five to 10 years is to build another 10 to 15 shelters that have the capacity to house about 20% of our population.”
ASt Vincent and the Grenadines and most of the region, the Bahamas emergency shelter has independent facilities designated as safe areas in the event of a natural disaster. Many are decades old and have not been built with access for vulnerable populations in mind, or for the specific gender challenges posed by mass migration.
Sargent admits that infrastructure for people with disabilities is also a “work in progress”. “For future residences, we will make sure they are accessible to all residents, regardless of their handicap or disability.”
However, vulnerability may continue after people leave the shelters. Pace says that for women the recovery phase is often the hardest. “We’ve done a really good job in terms of quick response, making sure we’re paying attention to these special people in emergencies.” But she says people in vulnerable situations can find it more difficult to “get a loan or feel secure as a business owner, especially if you’re a single woman”.
Since leaving the shelter, it has taken Alexander a long time to regain his composure. Her house and livelihood were destroyed by the typhoon, and she lives without electricity or running water. “When I left Ashton and went to see my house, my head and legs started shaking. Recently, I stopped feeling like the ground was shaking,” she says.
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