The storms of '98 : Hurricanes Georges and Mitch : impacts, institutions response and disaster politics in three countries.

Includes bibliographical references

The 1998 Atlantic storm season will be remembered principally for two hurricanes : Georges and Mitch. Hurricane Georges was a September storm that was especially damaging to the Dominican Republic and then Haiti before making U.S. landfall in Mississippi. Hurricane Mitch was an October storm that followed an unusual track out of the southwest Caribbean and then over the Central America, where it inflicted catastrophic losses, especially in Honduras and Nicaragua. Indeed, Mitch has joined that relatively small number of terrible storms whose names have been retired. This study examines the impacts, institutional response and the "disaster politics" (including media attention) associated with Hurricane Georges in the Dominican Republic and Hurricane Mitch in Honduras and Nicaragua. A particular focus is the marginalization of "sidelining" agencies in the three countries that were supposed to be the official response and co-ordinating organizations