Cyclone Harold hit Espiritu Santo on April 6, 2020, with winds recorded at 235 kilometers per hour at landfall. The timing was brutal: international borders were closed for COVID, meaning the surge of international aid workers, journalists, and outside volunteers that typically follows a Pacific disaster couldn't arrive. Communities largely had to cope with what they had.

Luganville, Santo's main town, lost most of its roof infrastructure. The coconut and cocoa plantations that provide income for much of the island's rural population were stripped or flattened. Schools and health clinics were damaged or destroyed. Roads were blocked by fallen trees for days. Communication was down across large parts of the island.

What happened in the weeks after Harold was a demonstration of what Pacific communities can do when outside help is delayed. Village cooperatives organized debris clearance. Traditional building knowledge — how to lash poles, which woods resist termites, how to orient a structure against prevailing winds — was mobilized. Churches, which are central to community organization across Vanuatu, coordinated food sharing. This wasn't romantic self-sufficiency; people were genuinely suffering. But the response was real and effective.

The Vanuatu government, Oxfam, and other organizations eventually moved supplies in by boat. The no-cash-for-work programs that funded reconstruction required beneficiaries to show up, which was straightforward for those near Luganville but harder for remote communities. Cash transfer programs are now generally recognized as faster and more dignity-preserving than food or material aid, and Harold's reconstruction was one of the cases that reinforced this lesson for Pacific aid organizations.

By mid-2021, most families on Santo had some kind of shelter, though many were still in temporary structures. The process of rebuilding to pre-Harold standards took longer because supply chains for roofing iron, timber, and hardware were disrupted by COVID and because the scale of damage was simply enormous. Several thousand homes had been severely damaged or destroyed.

The agricultural recovery was slower than the housing recovery. Coconut palms take five to seven years to return to full production after being destroyed. Cocoa trees can recover faster from wind damage, but many were uprooted entirely. Farmers who had diversified into vegetables, root crops, and livestock were better positioned than those who depended primarily on tree crops. This is now a central message in the agricultural recovery programs running across the island.

Harold also hit Ambae, Maewo, Pentecost, and parts of other islands. In total, the Vanuatu government estimated around 160,000 people were affected. The total damage exceeded USD 600 million in a country whose GDP is around USD 1 billion. Rebuilding is ongoing in 2026, with some of the more remote communities still waiting for infrastructure repairs that have been repeatedly delayed by funding gaps and logistics.

The resilience is real, and it shouldn't be used to excuse the world's failure to provide adequate climate financing to countries like Vanuatu. Both things are true: ni-Vanuatu communities have extraordinary adaptive capacity, and they shouldn't need it as often as intensifying cyclones are forcing them to use it.