By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Shipping delays and the absence of electricity are the major obstacles to Man-o-War Cay’s recovery from Hurricane Dorian.

Jerome Petrisko, the Hibiscus Café’s general manager, told Tribune Business: “Man-O-War is recovering very quickly. Everyone is working very hard and we’re happy to have a working restaurant and a local business that’s up and running. Everybody’s is here and we’re all just working. We all have jobs, we’re all supporting the community and the community is supporting us. We’re doing alright.

“Power is a real issue for us. Our generator burned out. We got a second generator and that’s having problems. Power is a huge issue for us, with our freezers with storage and keeping things at the proper temperature for food safety and that kind of thing. It’s hard. We’re struggling but we’re making it work.”

Mr Petrisko also expressed concern over the inability to receive timely shipments from his suppliers, saying: “Goods are coming in. We are getting shipments of our things, but we are not getting stuff we ordered in; it’s not coming on time. Things used to be very regular and now it’s sporadic and it’s more difficult, but I expect that after a storm.

“I think it’s a problem with the logistics. Those companies are picking themselves off of their feet, too, and they are working hard to get themselves back to where they used to be. So it’s probably tough for them to get their stuff and everything in order so they can get our stuff in order for us. I guarantee your when we get power, and have 24 hours a day of regularity, that will change a lot for us.”

Mary Ann Albury, general manager of Joe’s Studio, told Tribune Business: “Things have been slow but thanks to Samaritan’s Purse and the Mennonites our recovery has been very steady and wonderful. We miss seeing them go, but as they are leaving it’s becoming very quiet.

“There is no power, we are just running a small generator because our generator quit. We did for a month after the storm, but since it quit we have not been able to get it started. We get updates from the powers that be here, and they are saying it could be another month before they get power and that they are bringing transformers in.”

Ms Albury said she had been informed by Bahamas Power & Light (BPL) officials that they will lay cables “underground from the poles to the houses, but they didn’t have any transformers”. The utility also still has to do “cabling from Marsh Harbour and they have to splice it, so they are saying maybe another 30 days”.

Expressing her frustration, she said: “[This is] more than six months. Hurricane Floyd was only six weeks so you can’t compare this to Floyd any more. This is definitely worse than Floyd now.

“I wish we had seen more government involvement. We did not see a bottle of water from government up here. The first responders were Spanish Wells. They came up with a barge, and a lot of supplies and generators and things like that, because it was payback for our help after Hurricane Andrew. They remembered and they were a big help.”

Ms Albury also complained about the inconsistent delivery of goods into Man-0-War Cay, adding: “There is a barge that comes. Abacays (Carib Freight Management) is back up and running. They lost a lot of their barges; one overturned with all of the boats.”