The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Tribune Staff Reporter

rwells@tribunemedia.net

PRIME Minister Perry Christie yesterday led a delegation on a tour of the southern islands most devastated by Hurricane Joaquin, where residents shared stories of survival, resilience and hope despite the catastrophe they endured.

Residents of Acklins and Crooked Island credited luck and quick thinking for their escape with their lives from the hurricane’s wrath.

While on the tour, the nation’s leader again foreshadowed plans to unveil massive changes to the nation’s Disaster Preparedness Act in the coming weeks after witnessing the devastation left in the wake of Joaquin, which ripped through the country’s central and southern region last week.

Mr Christie said safeguards that protect residents before, during and after storms are needed to ensure that the country never faces such destruction again.

In an effort to quantify the government’s economic approach to relief efforts in the central and southern islands, Mr Christie led an assessment unit through Acklins, Crooked Island and Long Cay yesterday. He was accompanied by members of his Cabinet, Director of NEMA Captain Stephen Russell and the heads of BEC, BTC and the Water and Sewerage Corporation.

While in Crooked Island, one resident described the island he had called home for his entire life, as “hell in the arms of paradise”, adding that the homes on the island now only stood as the “skeletal memories of what life used to be.”

Residents in Acklins and Crooked Island said little warning was given ahead of the massive category four storm. They indicated that from the ferocious nature of the hurricane’s winds and sea surge one thing was clear – “Joaquin came to take lives”. However, despite the storm’s strength, no deaths have been associated with it.

In Landrail Point, Crooked Island, Michael Carroll credited the strength of his home’s exterior columns, two lengths of rope and his two fishing vessels with saving, not only his life, but the lives of the 16 other persons who had sought refuge in his home during the storm until they could escape the structure.

Mr Carroll and his family weathered 120mph winds and flooding up to 15 feet inside their home.

The initial moments of Hurricane Joaquin gave him the impression that the storm could be ridden out, he said. However, hours into it, with winds picking up and waters rising, he feared the worst.

“Maybe about 8 o’clock (on Thursday) it started to get really bad again, and so water started to come inside the house really fast like through roof, shingles started popping off. In my room, we started to lay down and say, ‘everything is going to get better’,” he said.

“Then all of a sudden, water started to drip from the ceiling and my wife realised that water was coming from the tub; through the floor.”

At that point, floodwater had reached the height of his door handle.

Unable to get his front door open, Mr Carroll had to escape through a window before he led his family on to his two fishing boats stationed in the front of his property. Once on the vessels, he and his brother-in-law determined that the strength of the waves would pull the boats away if they didn’t tie them off.

The group remained inside the vessels for 19 hours. Mr Carroll said he could hear and feel the wind, while the waves seemed as if they would never end.

Yesterday, Mr Carroll worked to salvage any valuables he had left, however his house was totally destroyed.

His wife, Beulah, the only nurse in the settlement, was half a mile away working to aid the sick and injured in the community clinic.

She told The Tribune that she has spent everyday since the storm at the clinic – a place more than 20 persons now call home.

Landrail Point now has a major British relief vessel stationed just out of its bay. The residents there said that the sight of the ship gives them hope; hope they said Hurricane Joaquin dismantled with no regard.

While the devastation in Landrail Point was palpable, the scene two miles out of the settlement was nearly unbelievable.

At the sight of it, Deputy Prime Minister Phillip “Brave” Davis said: “Wow, if someone tried to tell me about this I would never be able to conceive the truth of this sight.”

Downed power lines littered the street, utility poles were snapped in half and debris was scattered over the area.

One health official called it the feeling of the end.

What was once the island’s premier airport terminal now stands as a makeshift pharmacy.

State Minister for Investments Khaalis Rolle, seated just outside the terminal, said he couldn’t “begin to imagine how to fix” what he just saw.

Crooked Island is made up of five settlements, all destroyed – all without power.

The island’s eastern end is home to Pitts Town, a settlement said to have been left “ruined beyond repair.”

Access to the settlement could only be made by helicopters.

The island has a population of 285 residents. On Monday, 46 residents were evacuated and another eight on Tuesday.

The island of Acklins is five minutes away by plane and a 15 minute boat ride.

In Snug Corner, the contents of residents’ homes were strewn across multiple properties.

Items from Lionel Rolle’s kitchen were spred outside while the tools he stored in a shed in the rear of his yard were three properties up the street.

“I have lost everything,” he declared, standing inside what was once his bedroom. “That’s my last plate there, I have nothing else. No toilet, nothing, it is all gone.”

Mr Rolle said as the wind and waves of Hurricane Joaquin entered the shores of Acklins he took to the hills to seek shelter. He credited that decision with saving his life.

Speaking with heavy voice he said: “This is a new township we were trying to create here, my brother and I. We were trying to build a new Acklins, but I guess we have to try again. We will try again.”

Tourism Minister Obie Wilchcombe praised Mr Rolle for his pleasant spirit in the face of adversity. According to the West End and Bimini MP that is the spirit that keeps the Bahamas going.

Mr Rolle’s compressor sat just in front of a property belonging to Clinton Rolle, the owner of the island’s biggest food store.

The store and its inventory were all wiped out from the hurricane. Mr Rolle estimated that he lost more than $400,000 in supplies. His home was also destroyed.

“The only pants I ran away with, and I still have it on today,” he said.

He, his wife and three children survived the storm in an abandoned home atop a hill opposite their home.

Joaquin’s passage marked the second time both men dealt with this type of devastation; the Acklins residents also lost valuables in 2011 during Hurricane Irene.