A perfect storm in a teacup

For the last year or so, the world has begun to look like the cluttered front cover of a Watchtower magazine, with every conceivable catastrophe or disaster all happening at once, within a mile or so of each other.

As if Irma wasn't enough for one season, José is right on its tail, making salvage, rebuilding or return to the foundations of your house either premature or pointless.

Those 5 million Floridians who have been forced to get on the North road out - where are they going to go? I would not have thought that there were enough hotels to put them all up, even in Florida.

I heard an Englishman describe his and his family's experience on the British Virgin Islands today. He said that there is not a single piece of green vegetation left anywhere and the sustained 180 MPH winds have pretty much destroyed everything in their path.

I hope Cuba's already fragile infrastructure can put itself back together again now that Trump has reversed Obama's attempts at lifting the blockade. The worst of the damage seems to have cut right through the detested Varadero tourist holiday resort, which must bring a wry smile to all the Cubans who are not allowed to enter the gated complex of hotels, restaurants and nightclubs unless they work there.

But the Cubans are tough. We once watched the edge of a hurricane clip Havana from the safety of a luxury high-rise hotel. The sky was black with torrential rain and the palm trees were bent double to the point of snapping, but the locals were walking down the road in T-shirts as they went about their meagre business.

Meanwhile, The Blue Anchor Bay hotel is very slowly falling into the Bristol Channel and room prices remain the same. Get it while you can.

I watched a news item about the coastal erosion of Blue Anchor Bay, and a local was talking about the £10 million income that tourism brings to the area. Many people go there to ride on the steam train which runs about 10 miles along the coast, virtually on the beach at about six feet above sea level. In a matter of a year or two, the coastal erosion will cause the rail lines to be deemed unsafe, so it will be closed down.

The Blue Anchor Bay business community got together and applied for a national grant of £500,000 to stabilise the cliffs and save their tourism industry, but were turned down.

A one-off expenditure of £500,000 to save £10,000,000 per annum seems like a no-brainer to me, but North Somerset is not a hurricane area. Just as well.