The Tribune

By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

THOUSANDS of guests at the Atlantis Paradise Island Resort were evacuated from their hotel rooms late on Wednesday afternoon in preparation for the impact of Hurricane Matthew.

The 2,100 visitors and residents, who were evacuated from the Coral Towers, Beach Towers, Harborside, Ocean Club and The Cove, will spend the next few hours in the Imperial Ballroom, which has been sectioned off into dozens of sleeping quarters.

Executives at the hotel say the move is just a precaution to ensure that people are safe during the category 3 storm.

It is expected that guests will remain in the ballroom until Thursday morning, when the hotel will be assessed for damage. That assessment will determine if it is safe for guests to return to their rooms.

Howard Karawan, President and Managing Director of the Atlantis Resort, said preparations to secure the hotel started about five days ago.

"We took down coconuts, trimmed trees and were sandbagging the outside because the security of our guests is what is most important - and we also want them to hopefully have a good time," he said.

"Today at 5pm, we evacuated everyone from the towers and moved them into the shelters and the ballroom. There are about 2,100 guests and we have about 700 staff serving them, we have a couple restaurants open for dinner and tomorrow we will be serving breakfast, lunch and dinner in a variety of restaurants in the ballroom.

"Our guests are important to us, our employees are important to us and we also have to remember the community, so we did our best to accommodate as many people as we could. Of the 2,100 about 400 or so are Bahamians, a lot of which came in today when the Prime Minister announced the evacuation."

Mr Karawan said security will comb the halls of the hotel to ensure all guests are out of the rooms and safely in the shelters. "As we speak the security is walking from floor to floor in every one of the towers to ensure that all the balconies are locked and closed," he said.

"In previous storms we found people hiding under the bed and our concern is not that the hotel cannot withstand the storm but if someone decides they want to go out on the balcony and take a picture of a Cat 4 storm and the next thing we know they are in a pool, they put other people in danger."

Mr Karawan said originally guests would be allowed to leave the ballroom first thing Thursday morning but because Matthew has slowed down guests will probably remain in the shelters until the afternoon.

Guests were provided with pillows, blankets and sleeping mats as well as a complimentary meal and water.