Sadly it's the poorest of the country that get the hammer from all this...
I believe that the gov should put up a ban on ANY housing not made of cinder blocks and concrete, top to bottom...
Tin roofs should be outlawed 100%!!! They become the #1 killer when aerial from the winds, and pose a great risk to rescuers in the water...
The aftermath of any storm/ciclon/whatever should be just like it's 100% of the time, some fallen trees, broken limbs and debris on the streets... Nothing else is seen affecting any solid concrete house or school.
We should ban people from erecting these death traps in the vicinity of rivers and low lying lands prone to flood.
The fact that over 1 million poor of the poorest Haitians have made the DR home and their related families, have added a huge over 11 to 20% layer of poverty to the country that can't be managed at all. They build where they can get away with it, just like any poor Dominican family does as well.
To the best of my recollection, some 30 or so years back, not a single hut was erected by the river banks now the aftermath of the Taveras havoc there...
The lower parts next to the circumvalacion, where NO housing rows existed, but car parking lots made to look like houses. The Baracoa and la Joya neither extended lower than some 250 meters from the bank's edge...
The Yaque River was much more affluent than it is nowadays to the point that, the Hermanos Patino Bridge was in fact due its height from water level...
It should be a priority of any gov to eliminate any of these settlements in so many dangerous places, by allocating a VAT (tax) to beer and alcoholic beverages of 1 peso; paid y consumers much like the bottle deposit at sale point.
This way the gov can raise the money to fund multifamiliares for the evicted, given their proof of residence. Let's not forget that the DR can't take Haiti's poorest mass on its own, just to appease international outcry. If they care so much, let them take one quarter of what we allow already to be in our soil, each...
What did you think? That a poor Dominican farmer from Jarabacoa would come to Santiago and build a hut in the river bank, just so that he could get a job?
I blame our gov for the havoc that runs amok in our cities and towns, just so that big biz can enjoy cheap labor to fill their pockets even more...
If I described the setting of the Yaque River around the Hermanos Patino of yore for you, must certainly it would look like I was on PCP to you...
Sadly, it's the poorest that pay the price of incompetent people at our highest places of Law and order...
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