Note that Irene has been no joke in the Caribbean; in Puerto Rico (with relatively modern infrastructure), about a third of the island lost power.
Dont fucking insult me. Relatively modern infrastructure? We don't build our buildings with fucking wood and gypsum board... We use armed concrete... that is why we can take a Category 5 Hurricane (like Hugo) or Category 4 (like Georges or Katrina) and survive it without the DRAMA the US experienced with Katrina... When we get a hurricane like that, we receive it with Don Q Rum and in a Beach Chair...
Bullshit. I was there for Hugo and Georges. Hugo when it hit PR was a category 3, but it barely scraped the northeastern tip of the island (close to Fajardo). The Vieques and Culebra islands got hit the hardest, followed by the eastern municipalities, and the rest of the island got off easy. My street was without power for over a month afterward.
Georges was category 3 when it hit PR, too, not a 5. That did cut diagonally right through the middle of the main island. My parent's house lost a crappy zinc roof used in an extension that they should've never made to the house.
Now If you had said that the island was a step up from a third world country, I couldn't agree with you more... If the goverment agencies did their job right one third of the island wouldn't have lost power and water for more than a day... The services down there are such a fucking joke compared to 20yrs ago when a Category 5 Hurricane would cause the same inconveniences that this Category 1 hurricane caused.
Dude, 22 years ago when Hugo hit I was without power for a whole damn month. And I lived in a middle upper class neighborhood.
When it comes to hurricanes, the guys in PR who've got their shit down are Defensa Civil—the government emergency preparedness agency.