The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

DISASTER Reconstruction Authority executive chairman Alex Storr said the authority will advise Cabinet on how best to repurpose domes in Abaco that were never used, adding the DRA no longer supports sending the domes to Family Islands for storage purposes.

“The dome project was something that had Cabinet approval from the previous Cabinet,” he said yesterday, “so in order to do anything with the domes other than the prescribed purpose we have to write to Cabinet. And so we have one or two ideas that are on the table.

“The project manager had submitted something that we submitted to Cabinet, but after doing some further investigations into that, that would perhaps be an expensive undertaking so we’re currently trying to find another purpose for the domes.”

Mr Storr said the former project manager wanted the domes shipped to Family Islands and used for storage purposes.

“The idea was to ship them to the different administration offices on Family Islands to allow them to use them as storage,” he said. “But what would have to go along with them to prep each dome and to make them hurricane resistant would cost a lot of money and also to remobilise the domes, bring them in from the island, send them back to the different islands, the combined cost would perhaps add another $20,000 - $30,000 to the already high cost of those domes.”

Mr Storr said the operations committee of the DRA hasn’t made its final report yet on how to repurpose the domes.

He said the authority is re-evaluating the current use of domes in Spring City “because some of them may have even had issues with mould and other things, so that’s something we have under re-evaluation. But persons who are currently in them are being given first priority for any new housing that comes available.”

Mr Storr told the Nassau Guardian that it cost nearly $1m in shipping and storing the domes in 48 shipping containers.

The Minnis administration spent more than $6m on nearly 200 domes that were supposed to be used as temporary housing for Abaco and Grand Bahama residents after Hurricane Dorian.