# Should the Bahamas be deemed uninhabitable for humans and be quarantined? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 15, 2019, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271 "2019-09-15T16:26:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/21 "2019-09-16T10:11:04Z")
Occasional total destruction is a way of life in the Caribbean. If your generation hasn’t taken a hit, that’s considered a blessing. In 1979 Dominica was hit by Category 5 hurricane David. I was there in 1990 and the people were still recovering. In 2017 Hurricane Irma caused catastrophic damage in Barbuda, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Anguilla, and the Virgin Islands as a Category 5 hurricane. I visit St Martin yearly and they are still struggling to rebuild. Inhabitants of the Caribbean move to other islands like inhabitants of the US move to different states. I’ve met people who left an island in despair after a hurricane only to have their new island home get hit the following year. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/22 "2019-09-16T10:34:58Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > What would the response of a US customs official be right now, if a Bahamian turned up at the border requesting US permanent residence on the grounds that their home is uninhabitable and too dangerous to live in? On a global scale, that is an issue the temperate zone countries are going to have to get to grips with, and pretty soon. And show no signs of doing so (we haven’t done too well with the fallout from Syria and the like, and this will be many times greater). ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/23 "2019-09-16T14:16:37Z")
> [@SamuelA](#): > > [Hurricane Harvey - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey#Houston_metropolitan_area_flooding) > > Houston had **35%** of the main county flooded. It had actual waves and whitecaps on I-10. It damaged 204,000 homes, and caused somewhere between 125-198 billion dollars in damage. > > Now, yes, 2 homes my family owns in Houston were not flooded. But one of them, the immediate neighbors were, and in the other, the entire neighborhood a mile away was completely flooded. It’s totally dependent on where your houses were- if you look at the maps, almost all of the damage was near existing creeks, reservoirs or bayous. Or existing areas that are known to be prone to flooding, like Meyerland. > **[Where Harvey’s effects were felt the most in Texas](https://apps.texastribune.org/harvey-fema-damage-analysis/)** > > According to a preliminary analysis by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, at least 156,000 properties may have been affected by the floodwaters of Hurricane Harvey. At least 68,000 are located in Harris County. Either way, the place wasn’t nearly as destroyed as the news elsewhere would lead you to believe. Which is not to say there wasn’t a lot of damage, but that the news always makes it seem apocalyptic, when it’s not always that way. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/24 "2019-09-16T14:25:45Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > By whom? This is a serious question. This. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/25 "2019-09-16T14:26:39Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Occasional total destruction is a way of life in the Caribbean. … It’s when it switches from “occasional” to “frequent”, from once a generation, to once a decade or even every few seasons, that rebuilding is no longer a reasonable response. Large populations live in coastal and island communities that will be uninhabitable in the not overly distant future; others in area in which fresh water scarcity will create climate refugees, even under optimistic projections. Yeah, we need to develop policies and plans in advance of the crises that we can clearly see are on the way. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/26 "2019-09-16T14:42:06Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Yeah, we need to develop policies and plans in advance of the crises that we can clearly see are on the way. But who is “we”? For the most part these are sovereign countries. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/27 "2019-09-16T19:46:52Z")
For starters - the USA has something like 95,471 (NOAA estimate) miles of coastline. Everything immediately adjacent to those 95,471 miles in danger from rising sea levels. That includes some huge cities like New York and Miami. What is the US doing to plan for this? Zip. Nada. Jack and shit. We don’t even have the excuse of being an impoverished third-world island dependent largely on tourist dollars. ---
**Author:** ![kirkrapine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ea924/32.png) [@kirkrapine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirkrapine)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2019, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/28 "2019-09-16T20:38:24Z")
> [@bump](#): > > For example, while hurricane Harvey was very destructive in Houston, the whole place didn’t flood- most of the flooding was limited to known low spots and areas in proximity to creeks, bayous and streams. The problem was that the infected areas included industrial plants. Toxic chemicals got into the water. ---
**Author:** ![sleestak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/919ad9/32.png) [@sleestak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sleestak)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2019, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/29 "2019-09-17T22:22:38Z")
> [@susan](#): > > How about Puerto Rico? Tortola? Caymans? Tuvalu is in much more dire straits, due to rising sea levels. Or maybe not: > [@](#): > > A University of Auckland study examined changes in the geography of Tuvalu’s nine atolls and 101 reef islands between 1971 and 2014, using aerial photographs and satellite imagery. > > It found eight of the atolls and almost three-quarters of the islands grew during the study period, lifting Tuvalu’s total land area by 2.9 percent, even though sea levels in the country rose at twice the global average. and > [@](#): > > While we recognise that habitability rests on a number of factors, loss of land is unlikely to be a factor in forcing depopulation of Tuvalu. From [here](https://phys.org/news/2018-02-pacific-nation-bigger.html). And, just so you are aware, this isn’t just Tuvalu. > [@](#): > > Over the past decades, atoll islands exhibited no widespread sign of physical destabilization in the face of sea-level rise. A reanalysis of available data, which cover 30 Pacific and Indian Ocean atolls including 709 islands, reveals that **no atoll lost land area and that 88.6% of islands were either stable or increased in area, while only 11.4% contracted**. Atoll islands affected by rapid sea-level rise did not show a distinct behavior compared to islands on other atolls. Island behavior correlated with island size, and no island smaller than 10 ha decreased in size. (note, 10 ha is about 24 acres) From [here](http://sci-hub.tw/10.1002/wcc.557). Maybe checking on these things is a good idea before planning the evacuations. Slee ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271/30 "2019-09-18T03:33:10Z")
Fine with me. Very interesting data–thank you. The last book I read about Tuvalu was prior to 2014, and I’m sure they’re happy not to be progressively under water. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-the-bahamas-be-deemed-uninhabitable-for-humans-and-be-quarantined/840271.md?page=1)