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DISASTER MANAGEMENT
One week after Dorian, Bahamians struggle amid the ruins
By Cyril JULIEN
Nassau, Bahamas (AFP) Sept 9, 2019

For Bahamas island's new homeless, a grim wait for evacuation
Marsh Harbour, Bahamas (AFP) Sept 7, 2019 - "Here, we're all going to die."

Miralda Smith spoke in a nervous near-whisper as she lined up Saturday with hundreds of other weary, shell-shocked residents of devastated Marsh Harbour to leave the Abaco Islands in the Bahamas.

Smith, a Haitian national, had arrived on foot at 4:00 am (0800 GMT) after the shantytown where she and many other Haitian workers lived -- The Mudd -- was almost completely wiped out by Hurricane Dorian.

On Saturday, as Smith awaited passage to Nassau -- where her Bahamian husband lives -- she reflected on the grim events of the past week.

"I just want to leave the island," she said, speaking in French.

"We have no water, no electricity -- we're dying. It's really catastrophic."

- Seeking relief -

By midday, hundreds of people were lined up at the port, sitting on bags or on the ground, some seeking relief from the baking sun with scraps of cardboard or salvaged plastic.

The line stretched from a hangar -- the roof of which had been ripped off by Dorian's Category 5 winds -- to the dock, where soldiers inspected people's baggage before it was stacked onto pallets and wrapped in plastic for loading on ships.

As the wait stretched out, food and water were regularly handed out.

One ferry left early Saturday for the capital Nassau with 200 evacuees; another was to leave during the afternoon.

Private boats and even big cruise liners were arriving to help in the evacuation.

- 'Dead bodies everywhere' -

Sixty-one-year-old Ilfraed Othello stared grimly at the remains of his home in the distance.

"I don't want to walk that way, there are dead bodies everywhere," he said.

He took refuge in a neighbor's home during the storm, escaping only with his passport and Bible, he said.

"I want to leave by boat or by plane," Othello said. "There's no sense in staying here."

Chaos also prevailed at the airport in the southern part of the city. Perhaps 100 people were lined up waiting for flights out on the national airline.

Some slept on the ground or in chairs while children played. A hundred more waited to get into the terminal.

"We gonna put everybody off this island," an airport worker assured everyone, "but we have to work together. It's gonna be all right."

- 'No food, no water' -

Tanya McDermott had been waiting for hours with her husband and son, but with priority going to the injured and the elderly, as well as single mothers with children, their wait stretched out.

"We are going to wait around all day if we have to," she said.

Another would-be evacuee, Chamika Durosier, described the desperate scenes facing those still on the island.

She and her family had to crawl out of their home after the roof fell in, Durosier said, and now they just wanted to get away.

"People have no food. People have no water, and it's not right," she said.

"Dead bodies are still around and it's not sanitary."

The airport's runway was still usable but several airport buildings were damaged or destroyed. Uprooted palm trees blocked parts of the parking lot.

But not everyone wanted to leave.

Kelly Louis-Pierre, a 54-year-old mason, survived the storm relatively unscathed in his concrete home -- across the street from The Mudd.

With his wife and seven children, he is determined to stay and rebuild.

"After the hurricane we need work, jobs -- start over again from scratch," he said. "I have a house to live in and we have to rebuild this area."

As for The Mudd, he thinks it should be razed.

Developers might then be willing to invest in the area, he said, adding, "They could build whatever they want."

One week after Hurricane Dorian devastated the Bahamas, residents struggled amid the ruins Sunday, with many forced to seek refuge far from their shattered homes as the death toll from the top-intensity storm hit 44 in the islands.

Dorian, now classified as a post-tropical storm, caused "severe damage" in eastern Canada and was expected to move soon into the North Atlantic after cutting a destructive swath through the Bahamas and going up the US east coast.

In the Bahamas, people were still scrambling for shelter, with the lucky evacuees beginning to reunite with loved ones but the fate of uncounted others still in doubt.

Prime Minister Hubert Minnis warned the death toll -- which Health Minister Duane Sands put at 44, according to local media -- was likely to climb "significantly."

A loosely coordinated armada of passenger planes, helicopters and both private and government boats and ships -- including redirected cruise liners -- converged in the Bahamas on the horribly battered Abacos to help with evacuations, both to Nassau and to the US mainland.

Tropic Ocean Airways said it planned to fly supplies to hard-hit Marsh Harbour from Florida and bring out some 220 people to Nassau on a Delta Air Lines jet.

On Saturday, a cruise ship carrying 1,400 people docked in Riviera Beach, Florida, CNN reported. All had documents to enter the United States.

The Coast Guard said all Bahamian ports had now reopened. As of Sunday morning, it had five cutters providing support and five helicopters taking part in search and rescue operations. It said 308 people had been rescued.

Many of those still waiting to leave Marsh Harbour were Haitian workers. The area where they lived -- The Mudd -- was almost completely wiped out by Dorian.

Haitians who have arrived in Nassau have accused the government of prioritizing native-born Bahamians for evacuation from Marsh Harbour over Haitian nationals.

- 'Severe damage' in Canada -

Dorval Darlier, a Haitian diplomat who flew from Nassau to Marsh Harbour on Sunday, defended the Bahamian government against the allegations.

"Haitians have been treated well," he said. "Some get mad (that) they have been here since yesterday. But the government has first to find a shelter for them."

"If I have to choose between my mother and my mother-in-law, you know who I have to choose first."

Thousands of miles north in Canada, Dorian caused "severe damage" in the Maritimes, a three-province region in eastern Canada comprising Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, the Canadian Hurricane Centre said.

On Sunday night, Dorian was leaving the northern tip of Newfoundland and "will gradually weaken as it moves towards Europe," it said, adding that no serious injuries or fatalities have been reported.

More than 500,000 power outages were reported across the Maritimes, according to the Canadian Hurricane Centre.

- 'Catastrophic and devastating' -

Bahamas residents said conditions on the devastated islands were brutal, and that the smell of unrecovered bodies, along with mounting piles of garbage, was oppressive and unsanitary.

Hundreds or even thousands of people were still missing, officials said, as search-and-rescue teams continued their grim retrievals.

Minnis said Nassau "cannot possibly accommodate" all the Abaco victims.

For now, he said, supplies of food and water were adequate, though several witnesses from Abaco contested that.

The prime minister called the loss of life "catastrophic and devastating," and Health Minister Duane Sands said the final death toll "will be staggering."

The UN's World Food Programme was sending food and supplies. A WFP team estimated that 90 percent of buildings in Marsh Harbour were damaged.

The Pan American Health Organization warned of the risk of water-borne and communicable diseases, but said no cholera cases had been detected, nor had there been any increase in communicable diseases.

The US Coast Guard, Britain's Royal Navy and private organizations have been helping evacuate island residents to Nassau, hampered by damaged piers and airport runways.

Natasha Young was camped out at the Nassau port in a tent. She was evacuated from Marsh Harbour on Monday and is now waiting for her family.

"Yesterday, I found my mum, my sister and aunt. Now we are waiting for my brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, and my kids," she said.

The 24-year-old was adamant that she would not go to a shelter until her family arrived.

"When we are all reunited, I don't mind if they put all of us in a shelter," she said. "I'm not going from the dock until a find my family."


Related Links
Bringing Order To A World Of Disasters
A world of storm and tempest
When the Earth Quakes


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