Preparing for natural disasters is hard during normal times, but it is especially difficult during a pandemic. Economic resources are low, people’s anxieties are high, and coordination and rapid response are made harder by our inabilities to congregate and work together. How are countries and leaders handling this unprecedented moment?

Garfield “Garry” Sinclair and Dr. Ted Kury joined Next Practices Live to talk about how governments and infrastructure providers can prepare for the 2020 hurricane season. Mr. Sinclair is the CEO of The Bahamas Telecommunications Co. Ltd. and Vice President of the Northern Cluster of Cable & Wireless Communications, which includes the Bahamas, Jamaica and Cayman. He was previously President of the Caribbean, Cable & Wireless Communications; Managing Director of FLOW Jamaica; and President and COO of Dehring Bunting & Golding Limited.

Dr. Kury is PURC’s director of energy studies. He has advised numerous government in the United States on hurricane preparedness and has led Florida’s cooperate research on hurricanes and electric infrastructure. He wrote and manages Florida’s computer programs for predicting and analyzing electric grid resilience, and has published research on this and related issues. He is a sought-after teacher on utility regulation worldwide.

Mr. Sinclair, Dr. Kury, and I discussed lessons from previous hurricane seasons, how preparation is different this time, ways to coordinate with government officials, cost recovery issues, and long term planning for storms.