The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian airline yesterday said it had received calls from five companies to evacuate their foreign workers from the Family Islands before Hurricane Irma’s arrival.

Captain Randy Butler, Sky Bahamas’ chief executive, told Tribune Business it had even received a request to evacuate workers from Bimini, even though the island is not projected to be in the storm’s direct path.

Describing Irma’s Category Five strength and 185 mile per hour winds as “unprecedented”, Captain Butler said Sky Bahamas would send its larger 30-plus seater planes to help evacuate Bahamian residents in addition to the foreign employees.

“This is an unprecedented storm,” he added. “Tomorrow morning [today] I know we have a number of flights we’ve scheduled for private companies to get their workers out of the Family Islands.

“There’s a number of private companies in the Family Islands that are calling us, contracting us to take their employees out. We had a request to get them out of Bimini, and had a request from Ragged Island.”

Declining to name the companies involved, Captain Butler told Tribune Business: “About five companies called me to move their people people out. We’ve put our normal schedule on hold, and are just going to do what we need to do.”

The Sky Bahamas chief was speaking just ahead of Dr Hubert Minnis’s national address, during which the Prime Minister revealed “the largest evacuation” in Bahamian history after the Government decided to remove residents in the MICAL constituency and Ragged Island from Irma’s path.

Sky Bahamas, together with Bahamasair and other privately-owned Bahamian airlines, will provide planes and flights to assist the evacuations from Inagua, Mayaguana, Crooked Island and Acklins.

Captain Butler had earlier told Tribune Business that Sky Bahamas would use its largest 30-pus seater planes to enable Bahamians wishing to leave to join the company workers it is evacuating.

“You have a sense of panic within the Family Islands,” he said. “I don’t know how prepared NEMA (the National Emergency Management Agency) and the Government are with respect to what’s going on.

“They plan to get into action tomorrow [today]. How do you wait all this time to do that [evacuation], when you saw the storm for days, the track it was taking to go over Inagua, and every model showed it was a dangerous storm that is going to intensify. What’s taking us so long to do what we’ve got to do?”

While Irma’s arrival has coincided with the slowest part of the tourism season, the Ministry of Tourism last night said it was working with the hotels and other private sector to ensure the well-being of some 6,000 visitors presently in the Bahamas.

The majority, some 4,000 or two-thirds, are in Nassau/Paradise Island, with the remaining 2,000 spread throughout the Family Islands. The Ministry said most are expected to leave by Thursday ahead of Irma’s arrival, and none are located on the southern Bahamas islands expected to take the brunt of the Category Five ‘super storm’.

Joy Jibrilu, the Ministry of Tourism’s director-general, said in a statement: “Our main objectives are to ensure the safety and security of the guests throughout the islands of the Bahamas, protect the Bahamas’ reputation and secure the Ministry’s physical assets.

“We have many visitors right now, but unfortunately we may have to encourage them to leave in a timely manner depending on the trajectory of the storm and the islands that it will hit. Of course, all visitors do not necessarily leave and some wish to ride out the storm.

“The hotels have a very well-established protocol to look after those visitors should they wish to stay. We are satisfied that the visitors will be well looked after and we remain in constant contact with all hotels on all islands during the storm.”

Apart from the loss of stopover business, Irma has also cost the Bahamas five regular cruise ship calls, with Allure of the Seas and four Carnival vessels adjusting their schedules and dropping calls on Nassau and the Half Moon Cay private island.

Silver Airways has cancelled all flights into the Bahamas from tomorrow through to Sunday, September 10. However, the Lynden Pindling International Airport’s (LPIA) operator said last night that based on Irma’s current projected path the airport may only remain closed for 24 hours - from Friday evening until Saturday evening.