The Tribune

By Rashad Rolle

Tribune News Editor

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

SHE was displaced in Grand Bahama after Hurricane Matthew, forced from Abaco by Hurricane Dorian, and furloughed in New Providence at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 Now, the weekend fire in Bimini that destroyed her apartment and belongings is the latest misfortune that has Sirrisa Coyle wondering, “why me?”

 The 43-year-old mother-of-three and her 17-month-old baby are two of 22 people displaced by Sunday’s fire, which ripped through the Porgy Bay settlement.

 Most victims said they are coping reasonably with the fire’s destructive aftermath.

 But Ms Coyle said the fire has shaken her, a feeling she knows all too well.

 “How many times do you start over?” she tearfully asked in an interview with The Tribune. “I just wonder when I say these things, do people think that I’m careless or something? I’m not starting over at my age because I made poor decisions. I’m starting over because of circumstances. I didn’t ask for these things to happen. I had no control over COVID and being furloughed. I had this awesome job at a law firm and then, boom, I got sent home.

 “I only got that awesome job at a law firm because I got displaced from Abaco because of Dorian, and I had just gotten a job before Dorian. I had just started working on Guana Cay a mere month before Dorian, so it’s like, why does this keep happening? My story is weird. I’m sitting here and I’m overwhelmed because it’s like, water, disease, fire. And then after (Hurricane) Matthew, I got displaced. I used to live in Freeport for 19 years. I worked as a flight attendant during 911. Christ, you people even know what I’ve already been through? I don’t want to see anymore. It’s a lot. You keep seeing these images and people are devastated and I just want to see something happy.”

 “People just assume that I’m this happy fourth-grade teacher and it’s so much more than that. I’m terrified. I’m so scared. It’s so scary. How many times do you come so close? I’m starting to feel like, is this something that’s following me? I don’t know how I’m coping. When people ask me that, I try to avoid it because I don’t know. Honestly, I’m trying my best. That’s why I went to work after the fire. They were like, you should take compassionate leave, you should take some time off. And do what? Do exactly what I’m doing? I’ll sit down and I’ll think about it and it seems surreal. It’s like, how is she still alive?”

 Authorities are still determining the cause of Sunday’s fire, which began around 5am. With no functional firefighting equipment, Bimini residents banded together to fight the blaze with water hoses and buckets of water drawn from the sea.

 Ms Coyle and her daughter were not home when the fire started, but she can’t help but wonder what would have happened if they were. As a teacher at Bimini Primary School, her job there is her first teaching post. She said the fire disrupted her just as she was adjusting to life on the island. 

 “It was very hard to find a place to live and then finding this place and settling in and I just had my brother come last week and put this little hanger up by the door, you know, to signify that this is home, like this is the final little perch, like when you put your little homely touch on a place,” she said. “Literally and figuratively to watch it go up in smoke was tough because it was so hard to find a place to work and then I found Ellis Cottage and they made me feel like family.”

 After Hurricane Dorian forced her from Abaco, Ms Coyle thought she found a dream job at a law firm, but she was furloughed during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she was forced to repay the company when she returned to work, pushing her to leave the job and enter education. Before that, her 19 years in Grand Bahama came to an end when Hurricane Matthew destroyed her home.

 “I know they say that things keep repeating until you learn the lesson, and I’m just trying to figure out what I’m supposed to get from all of these experiences,” she said. “It’s just getting to be a little bit overwhelming now because even when I think to myself, God only gives these trials as tests to the strongest, I don’t think I’m the strongest person I know and yet somehow I’ve had to overcome so much, so that’s overwhelming.”

 Ms Coyle isn’t sure what her next move will be.

 “In the short term, I’m going to try and leave as soon as possible because I don’t feel well,” she said.

In the meantime, she is looking for a silver lining in her story.

 “People keep telling me that I’ll have this testimony that will help people, but I don’t know how much it has helped me to talk about it,” she said.