Dedicated hurricane shelter in Grand Bahama opened
By DENISE MAYCOCK Tribune Freeport Reporter dmaycock@tribunemedia.net
THE first dedicated hurricane shelter constructed in Grand Bahama was officially opened on Friday, June 7, almost a week into the start of the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane season.
The 4,200 sq ft multipurpose facility can accommodate 250 to 300 people during a storm. It has restrooms, showers, an industrial kitchen, a water well, and a generator.
The building was constructed at over $500,000 through donations from the government, local and international private donors, and NGOs.
The Evangeline Jervis Hurricane Shelter is located at the Freeport Seventh Day Adventist Church on Beachway and Gambier Drive. During a hurricane, it will be turned over to the Ministry of Social Services. All year round it will serve as a soup kitchen.
An additional $100,000 is needed for furnishings, including cots, partitions, air conditioning, and an emergency fire system.
Joel Lewis, permanent secretary in the Ministry for Grand Bahama, delivered remarks on behalf of Minister Ginger Moxey. He mentioned that a year ago, the late Obie Wilchombe, former Minister of Social Services, had requested the Bahamas government to make a substantial contribution to the shelter project.
He noted that the Freeport SDA church has been “a lifeline” to thousands of families and individuals in crisis in Grand Bahama since 2009 when it initially
opened the Evangeline Community Service Distribution Center.
“Their food and clothing distribution programs assisted residents from east to west Grand Bahama and throughout the city of Freeport and provided much-needed support during tough times.
“The new state-of-theart multi-purpose hurricane shelter will continue the valuable work at this centre,” said Mr Lewis.
He emphasised the need for safe and secure shelters for residents during and after a hurricane.
He thanked the Seventh Day Adventist and all the partners involved in the construction of the facility. In addition to their initial $25,000 contribution, Sarah St. George, Chairperson of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, has committed to further donating.
She noted that the projected cost of $855,000 for constructing the shelter was reduced by nearly 25% “through discounts and voluntary work.”
“The expenditure to date is $520,000 which is phenomenal and such an achievement,” said Ms St George. The last phase requires a further $100,000. We know the God will provide, and the Port Authority will help.”
She promised that things would get better in Grand Bahama.
“While we have some wacky numbers being thrown around, it comes down to multiplying our two fishes and our five loaves,” she stated.
“The investments we prayed for are coming, and everyone will rejoice soon, I promise.”
Ms St George noted that the GBPA established the Grand Bahama Disaster Relief Foundation specifically to address the humanitarian crisis following Hurricane Matthew in 2016. After Hurricane Dorian, the GBDRF spent $2 million to assist vulnerable residents and families in Grand Bahama. This aid
included home repairs, mold remediation, and the purchase of furniture and appliances for distribution.
Pastor Dannie Clarke, president of the North Bahamas Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and Pastor of Freeport, West End, and Eight Mile Rock Adventist Churches, said the shelter is being built for the benefit of the Grand Bahama community. Grand Bahama Christian Council President Kenneth Lewis and the Freeport SDA shelter project come in response to “the greatest disaster ever experienced by the island of Grand Bahama.”
He added that the shelter expands the island’s capacity to respond to disasters. “The number of donors that responded to his wonderful initiative is a testament to the commitment of the government, the Port Authority, citizens, and private international donors. The international donors were the Colony Tire Corporation and Micheline North America.
ARLENE Sands (far right), community service director at Freeport Seventh Day Adventist Church, and Estella Glinton, the daughter of Evangeline Jervis, cut the ribbon to open the shelter officially.
A friend in need is a friend indeed
By CUI WEI, Chargé d’affaires of
the Chinese Embassy in The Bahamas
THE day September 1st, 2019, struck all Bahamians when Hurricane Dorian hit The Bahamas. The effects of the Hurricane were among the worst experienced for any natural disaster in the country. In Abaco Islands, Grand Bahama, and elsewhere, Hurricane Dorian knocked out the power, water, telecommunications, and sewage service, leaving infrastructure damaged and tens of thousands of houses destroyed. According to reports, the estimated total damage amounted to US$3.4 billion, with at least 74 deaths and 282 people missing.
The Chinese government and people were concerned about the hurricane situation in The Bahamas. Shortly after the Hurricane struck the islands, the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi sent a message of condolence to his Bahamian counterpart. And in no time, emergency supplies including basic necessities, hygiene products and tools escorted by the then Chinese Ambassador arrived at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA). And days later, more aids with food and financial assistance came from the Chinese Embassy for Bahamians to weather the storm.
Right after the Hurricane, the Chinese government and Red Cross Society of China provided The Bahamas with more than US$600,000 in cash and material assistance to help Bahamians resume work and normal life.
Emergency aids were only band-aid solutions. A targeted, sustainable fund needs to be established in order to tackle natural disasters in the long term. On April 29, 2022, the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting among China and the Caribbean Countries Having Diplomatic Relations with China was held, where China-Caribbean Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Fund was set up. Since then, assistance from this fund has already benefited the reconstruction works in the affected areas of The Bahamas.
Highly exposed to hurricanes and other extreme weather events, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are on the frontlines of climate change. The Bahamas as a typical SIDS country, has an urgent need for capacity-building for risk management of disasters. That’s why in June this year the Red Cross Society of China organised the Seminar on Disaster Risks and Management for The Bahamas, which just concluded successfully.
Now the world faces unprecedented challenges. Amid global challenges of food and energy security, resource and environmental conservation, and climate change, it’s the common values we share that determines how we should build a community with a shared future for mankind. That’s why China’s words and actions continue to prove that together, we can bring about a brighter future.
A MAN stands amidst the debris in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian in Abaco.
Photo: Dante Carrer/Tribune Staff
Trapped in Hurricane Dorian: ‘A week of hell’
It is five years this year since Hurricane Dorian - which saw a Tribune team going into Abaco thinking they were well prepared for Hurricane Dorian - but it turned into a week of hell, trapped first through the passage of the deadly storm itself and then trying to find a way out of an island cut off from the outside world. RASHAD ROLLE relived his experience inside an island affected by death, destruction, looting and people trying to find a way to get through the storm.
It took little more than an hour for vast swathes of Abaco to be destroyed.
That’s how long the most ferocious part of Hurricane Dorian blasted the island, tearing down buildings, sending storm surges across the island and killing many of the inhabitants.
The Tribune’s team - myself and photographer Terrel W Carey Sr - had arrived on Friday ahead of the storm, and we thought we were prepared for the worst. We weren’t. No one could be.
We arrived with essential supplies, batteries and back-ups, and with accommodation booked in the Abaco Beach Resort - whose general manager expressed complete confidence that it was utterly prepared. He said there was a detailed plan for how to cope with the storm - guests would stay in their rooms, and if the storm reached category three, they would be invited to stay in the Below Deck area, a spacious area with sturdy steel shutters. This storm reached category five, ripping those shutters off and leaving guests watching in fear as windows bulged inwards ready to burst.
We arrived to find a resort full of experts, insurance assessors, foreign media and high-ranking members of the community, staying at what is regarded as the top hotel in Abaco.
At first, it was quiet - with the approaching storm missing its estimated arrival time. I stood outside my room, watching the sky and thinking it was going to amount to nothing.
But things changed as it began to pick up intensity. At about 9am, you could hear the sounds of the winds swirling. Peeking out through the canvas covering the balcony outside our room, we could see trees beginning to twist and bend, and the waves beginning to pick up.
The sky grew dark. There was no blue. There was no sun. My photographer partner, Terrel, called it unreal.
We were in room 205, counting the time as the storm built up. I spent the time on my phone and my laptop, keeping up to date with the progress of the storm and messaging people back home.
An hour later, we began to see signs that our setting was truly getting out of control.
Rain and leaves began to blast through the crevices of the hotel room and the bathroom doors.
Photos by Terrel W Carey
The wind was louder than ever. It sounded like the moment a vacuum is turned on, swirling all around you. At this point, the winds were more than 200mph in gusts, we later learned.
The canvas outside the room was flapping uncontrollably - by this point when we looked out all you could see was gray, with occasional glimpses of trees bending under the force of the storm.
Then came more water. We were on the second of four floors in the building and suddenly water was seeping in under the door. We grabbed towels and tried to block the flow, but it just kept coming. At the same time, water started dripping from the light fixtures throughout the room. Water even started dripping down the wall.
The fire alarm went off - and that’s when we got scared, worrying if something was on fire.
We feared it was a message to evacuate the building - but in the middle of a category five hurricane, we were unsure whether we should leave the room or not.
Even so, at this point, with electricity still on, we began to
Trapped in Hurricane Dorian:
Photos by Terrel W Carey
fear we could get electrocuted. I pulled out the plugs from the television and the refrigerator. A fellow guest later told us that he was watching Darold Miller on the television during the storm and sparks began to fly from it and he had to put out the fire.
Another hour later, we lost all communication through BTC. That was the last our colleagues would hear from us directly in days.
In the middle of it all, there was a sudden loud bang - peeping through the hole in the door, we could see the metal railing outside broken and lying on the walkway. These were solid metal poles snapped by the sheer power of the wind. We began to imagine the worst if we had to leave the room, seeing what the storm had done to metal and picturing what it could do to us.
By then, the water inside the room was continuing to get higher and higher. It seemed like every time you turned water was spewing from some new spot.
I was sitting on my bed wondering what we were going to do when I saw sunlight.
I thought this was the moment to make an escape so I opened the door and it was catastrophic what I saw.
To the right of me, the roof by the stairway had fallen in on top of the downed railing, so there was wooden debris stacked up upon one another mostly blocking the entrance up the stairs and out to that part of the complex.
To the left of me were the people coming out of their rooms, dressed in short pants and the most casual clothing, fumbling with their belongings in tow.
At that point, it wasn’t clear to me that any of them
knew where they were going to go. I remember grabbing our belongings and going around the back of the resort complex when I saw a fellow news colleague
who told me he was just coming to get us as they had made their escape just a little earlier. It was frantic. People were panicking. I saw Edison Key, former
Central and South Abaco MP, slowly walking to the designated safety spot at the Below Decks area. A reporter from an ABC affiliate was talking to her bosses on a satellite phone,
telling them what she saw was horrible and the worst thing she had ever experienced. This was the eye of the storm - and everyone knew that we only had a limited time before the hurricane would resume just as strong.
Even so, from the destruction that we saw during the calm of the eye, it was clear that Abaco had suffered devastating amounts of damage. The island was drastically changed, with flooding everywhere and buildings ripped apart by the storm. Even the resort itself - said to be capable of surviving the worst - had parts of its roof, doors and windows ripped off.
We went out to the entrance area and, while stunned by the flooding, we heard people screaming “help” in the distance. That was the first really traumatising moment for me. We could see in the distance a group - perhaps a family - clinging on a branch of a tree and screaming for assistance. Someone with us started waving and shouting at them, “How many?”. A distant voice shouted back “Five”. That prompted a mad dash to get kayaks said to be at the back of the
resort but we were unable to get them. We heard later that someone else had come to rescue them - but we never verified this and it was a sign of the impact of the storm.
Then came the refugees - people from the neighbouring Regattas complex seeking shelter after their own structure had collapsed. They came wading through chest high water to get to safety. There was a family including a woman carrying a three-month-old baby through debris. There was a woman walking with an elderly blind man. There was also a masseuse carrying her pet dog.
Along with them, we were urged by the manager to seek shelter in the Below Deck area - but the masseuse expressed concern that it was on the ground floor and facing the direction the storm would be coming back from. We argued frantically over what to do - and decided to head back upstairs. We grabbed our belongings and went to a room of a Reuters photographer on the second floor and sought shelter.
Later, we learned that the shutters at Below Deck had been ripped
Photos by Terrel W Carey
Trapped in Hurricane Dorian: ‘A week of hell’
was a firefighter who said he had been trying to get through flood waters with his two daughters, but they got pulled away from him, unable to swim. A woman walked by screaming because her 21-year-old daughter had died in The Mudd. An official who had gone into The Mudd ahead of the storm to urge people to evacuate - Pastor Wilson Isnord later told us that everyone there had a story of losing someone.
As we walked through the halls, you could hear people recounting stories.
You could hear them talking about how their roof fell off, about how this one got swept away, about how that one got left behind.
Kevin Altidor, a professional basketball player in Europe, was also in the complex and he said his nephew, Brenden Dion Altidor, spent the hurricane on a tree, where he had been placed by his stepfather who went back to save more - and did not return. He also had a few friends who died in a church nearby, and he knew several people who waited out the monster storm in bushes. When he went to the Pigeon Peas to look for his clothes, he found a stack of about nine high-powered guns and alerted the police.
One man - whose pregnant wife lost her mother in the storm - said the water in the Pigeon Peas area had gone from three feet to 30 feet in less than five minutes.
Exhausted, we tried to find somewhere in the
complex to sleep, and were given a spot in the cashier’s cage in the Road Traffic Department without electricity where we spent a restless, uncomfortable night. By that time, we were delirious, and got through the night the best we could.
Aftermath:
Day 2
The next day, we started to venture out. We headed to an Aliv store in the hope of getting communication out. We rode along with police, who took diesel to the store to try to refuel the generator.
We rode in the bucket of a tractor being driven by police across debris to the store.
Even as we were driving, we saw people coming with trolleys full of items; sodas, Gatorades, liquor, hot patties, everything you can imagine. We came to an area where there were cars on the roads and there were lots of people. It was the Save-A-Lot warehouse and people had bored a hole through the wall and were looting.
There were people walking through water with trolleys, there was a man
on a door he had turned into a canoe with a stick in his hand pushing himself on. They were all going to the store. The whole place was chaotic. Looting had become a way of life.
After we came away from the Aliv store, we went to see The Mudd. As we walked toward the Mudd, we saw a family reunite. It was a very emotional moment. Theirs was a surprise reunion. One half of the family had stayed at the hotel with us and had been going back and forth looking for the other half. They had been going back and forth in a truck when they saw them and it was a heartrending reunion. One woman was pouring with tears as she hugged her missing relatives. She was talking and crying so much about how she was convinced she would never see them again.
We continued to The Mudd. We had been told it and the Pigeon Peas were gone, but we hadn’t seen it for ourselves until now. It was just rubble. You could see a couple of dead dogs right away. We saw people trying to make their way through the rubble, they told us to come and see a dead body. That was the first dead body we saw. It was a woman, covered with wood and debris, swelling up from the water. It remained there.
We left to go to a church where we were told there were dead bodies. It was an unfinished Seventh-Day Adventist Church. Pastor Isnord told us later that eight people had gone into that building, evacuated during the storm, and the
roof collapsed on them.
We saw three bodies, but it was unclear if the other five people made it out. I saw one body of a man, whose leg was bent up to his nose, while his blood was almost purple. It was beyond horrible.
A second body of a man was turned on its belly and you could see the stones of the roof on top of him. I didn’t see the third myself - there’s only so much you can take seeing dead bodies up close, especially in that kind of undignified environment. We returned to the complex, where we remained for the rest of the day.
Aftermath:
Day 3
We had enough. We were still in the government complex, but living conditions were deteriorating. People had to pee in cups or use bushes as toilets.
One official warned to wash feet well because people were urinating or excreting on the floor. Top government officials on the island did the best they could to maintain some order.
At last, however, there were signs of people coming to our aid. Helicopters were flying over every five minutes. Supplies and food were brought in, with an aid group from California also aiming to bring in doctors and resources to help people. As we came out of the area we had been sleeping in, there was a woman having a medical event - thought to be a diabetesrelated problem. We later found out that she had died.
At least four people died at the government complex.
We left the complex and headed to the Marsh Harbour Clinic. It was full of people. It had turned into both a shelter and a clinic. People were sleeping inside - there were mattresses in the clinic. It seemed even more packed than the government complex. It had a terrible smell.
Again, we heard more stories from people about their traumatic experiences.
One man with an injury to his leg broke down in tears as he told us what he had gone through. Another man, Captain Brian Adderley, sustained an injury to his foot while swimming from Boat Harbour Marina on Bay Street to Dove Plaza on Don Mckay Blvd, where he helped Dr George Charite escape rising water.
A nurse said she had initially stayed at the Abaco Central Primary School shelter but the roof came off. She began praying to God to save her. She said she told God “Save me, I will work as hard as I can to save everyone else.” She had already been working three days straight when we met her, and she cried as we interviewed her. She told us how she had vomited the night before because she wasn’t getting enough food.
There were not many medics at the clinic, but the ones who were worked extraordinarily hard. Some of them cried when a helicopter came to relocate them to New Providence because they didn’t want to be separated.
Photos by Terrel W Carey
An American man who had stayed at the hotel with us - a storm chaser - made his way to the government complex and he began asking us how he could get out of the country. He pulled out his passport and asked who he could show it to, emphasizing that he was an American citizen. When the Coast Guard arrived, he tried to get a ride with them but was told only the sick were the priority.
We also met Lashan McIntosh, the mother of Lachino McIntosh, the eight-year-old boy whose death The Tribune reported
on Wednesday. She was hysterical - not just following her son’s death, but because she had brought her daughter to the clinic for treatment and she said she was desperate not to lose another child.
By this time, a path had been cleared back to Abaco Beach Resort, where we returned to get additional belongings, then came back to the clinic. We wanted to get off the island - and started asking about ways to find a way to leave.
We heard that the Sandy Point airport was open. It was an hour’s drive and we were able to go with media
colleagues. We decided to take the chance.
The further south we went, the less damage we saw. At some point, trees were intact, and we encountered areas that weren’t hit as badly by the storm.
We got to the airport and begged Southern Air pilots for a ride. They wanted to help us but because it was a paid charter they couldn’t.
The pilots were getting concerned by the fact that the people they brought to the island were taking so long to come back. At one point they told us yes, we could get on the plane. We were so excited. But
they didn’t immediately leave and eventually the headlights of the government staff who chartered the plane were returning, and they told us sorry, we couldn’t go.
That was a new low. We were distressed. We were disappointed. We did not know if we were going to stay or what we would do. We were an hour away from Marsh Harbour. It was night. Mosquitos were out in full force. Our misery and anger reached a peak.
But media colleagues there alongside us for the journey came to our aid again and we were able to
spend a night at a nearby motel.
Aftermath:
Day 4
Our final day was a day of frustration. We returned to the Sandy Point airport only to find that flights were no longer available because pilots had reportedly been told by NEMA they had to stop their charters. Planes were coming in bringing relief supplies - as well as taking people, but at this stage people were coming in despite NEMA’s orders. We had expected a plane to come in but it didn’t
arrive. It was a day of despair and anger as we sat and waited, trying to find a way out.
More and more people kept arriving at the airport, trying to find a way off the island.
Finally, we had a chance to get on board a plane. We held in our excitement until the plane was in the air. But at last we took off. At least we were safe.
I was exhausted. I could barely focus. And at last I slept. Behind us, Abaco was destroyed. But unlike many, we were alive. We had a home to go to. So many others are not so fortunate.
