On 30 May 2026 Barbados experienced the effects of a nearby magnitude 6 earthquake. Two days later was the start of the current hurricane season and government officials are busy reminding Barbadians to prepare. They need to speak to those who are preventing Barbadians from being adequately prepared.
After a hurricane, it is typical to see failed roofs and the broken timber frames scattered around. Those broken timbers are normally infested with termites – which explains the damage. Government officials should tell Barbadians not to use roof timbers untreated for termites – but they seem incapable of doing so since they may expose those who must not.
TRICKERY.
Barbadian homeowners who want to use timber pressure-treated against termites will find them difficult to purchase in Barbados. Contractors who order such timbers from hardware stores are normally sent timber that is not treated for termites – and have no idea they were tricked. Hardware stores have been allowed to get away with this nonsense since at least 2014. Government officials seem incapable of telling them to stop tricking Barbadian homeowners and contractors.
PREPARING TO BE HOMELESS.
The typical timber used in roofs across the Caribbean is Southern Yellow Pine (SYP). SYP is sold in five structural grades: Select Structural (SS), No.1, No.2, No.3 and No.4. Grades SS and No.1 are for structural uses. Grades No.3 and 4 are non-structural and are commonly used temporarily as formwork.
SYP Grade No.2 has some structural uses but should not be used where they mainly bend when loaded, because they have too many vulnerable knots. Those knots are known locations of breaking when the timber bends – which happens in roof timbers during hurricanes.
The only SYP grade I found selling in Jamaica after Category 5 Hurricane Melissa struck in October 2025 was No.2 – which contributed to the magnitude of destruction. The only SYP grade previously used in house roofs in Barbados was No.1. However, after the destruction on Jamaica, I noticed that Government housing started using SYP grade No.2 to save money. Since these already weakened timbers are also vulnerable to termite infestation, the occupants should prepare to be homeless after a hurricane.
PREPARING FOR ENTOMBMENT.
A reported 300,000 Haitians died during the 2010 earthquake. The typical house that failed had a reinforced concrete roof on masonry walls. The houses did not have adequate shear walls to resist the earthquake so they failed and the heavy concrete roof entombed the occupants.
In 1993, the Barbados National Building Code (BNBC) gave clear instructions for including shear walls in houses. The additional construction cost to include adequate shear walls in a house is zero Barbados dollars. However, for the past 33 years, almost every house approved by the Planning department has inadequate shear walls. Government officials seem incapable of telling the Planning department to stop approving structurally unstable houses.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?
Of all homeowners in the Caribbean, Barbadian homeowners are being forced to be the least prepared for a major hurricane or earthquake. The Barbados residential construction industry is the least regulated in the region and perhaps the world. We have certainly displaced Haiti.
In Barbados, the Planning authority typically: (i) approves structurally unstable houses for construction, (ii) approves drawings that contain insufficient information for contractors to actually build the house, (iii) provides no guidance to contractors on the quality of construction and (iv) does zero inspections on the quality of construction. Further, construction material suppliers are allowed to sell garbage to contractors claiming it is what it is not. It is truly a wild-west type unregulated industry that the Government is responsible for regulating.
POLITICAL SUICIDE.
I was told by a government minister that it would be political suicide to enforce building standards. That is a normal position for a country that has not been devastated by a hurricane or earthquake. In Antigua, it took Hurricane Luis to damage 60% of the economy (GDP) in 1995 to get them to prioritise building standards. In Haiti, it took 300,000 reported deaths in 2010 to convince them that building standards were important. What will it take us in Barbados?
Survivors of the 2010 Haiti earthquake are pleading with us to build better so that the loss of their 300,000 will not be in vain. Those recently devasted by hurricanes in: Grenada, St Vincent, Antigua, Anguilla, Jamaica and the Bahamas are similarly pleading with us that our foreseen misery is avoidable. In response, we have made the residential construction industry in Barbados worse – as if that were even possible. It seems we are being set-up to fail.
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