The 2025 Atlantic hurricane season was described by the World Food Programme as representing a potentially catastrophic additional threat to Haiti’s already desperate humanitarian situation. The WFP warned that a single major storm could push millions of additional Haitians into humanitarian catastrophe, and that unless resources were made available in advance, the WFP would not have the capacity to respond in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.
Haiti’s vulnerability to hurricane impacts had been multiplying through years of crisis. Deforestation had accelerated, leaving hillsides bare and vulnerable to catastrophic flooding and landslide during heavy rainfall. Early warning systems had deteriorated as state institutions lost operational capacity. Emergency response infrastructure had been decimated by years of underfunding. And the population of 1.3 million internally displaced people living in transitional or makeshift shelter was extraordinarily exposed to storm-related displacement and injury.
The WFP’s warning was stark: Haiti had entered the hurricane season with essentially no resilience reserve. Communities that had previously absorbed storm impacts through household savings, productive assets, and functional public services had been stripped of all three by years of crisis. A storm that in more resilient circumstances would be manageable as an emergency had the potential to tip already-desperate communities into complete humanitarian collapse.
Preparedness advocates called for pre-positioning of emergency supplies, evacuation planning for the most vulnerable populations, and specific resources for the most exposed displacement sites before any storm struck. They warned that the alternative — responding after a major storm had hit an already-catastrophic situation — would be far more expensive and far less effective than prevention-oriented preparedness investment.