The Tribune

By DR KENNETH D KEMP

BEFORE getting up, my patient Whitney stretched her entire body, rolling over repeatedly making maximum use of her comfortable king-sized bed. Even after a solid seven hours of sleep, she was still yawning and yearned for more rest. It was a typical Saturday morning and she vividly recalls how soft and warm her bed felt particularly since outside was abnormally cool for early September. She turned on her TV to hear the weather report.

Hurricane Dorian had just landed on Abaco, in The Bahamas, and the island was already gravely battered by heavy rainfall. Whitney got up, put on her bedroom slippers and listened intently to the meteorologist as she made her bed. She lived on the island of Grand Bahama, approximately 140 kilometers away from Abaco, and she prayed that Abaco would suffer minimal damage and that the Hurricane either died down before hitting Grand Bahama or bypassed it all together.

It was later in the day than she’d normally start. Her daughter and small but loud, walking alarm clocks (otherwise referred to as grandchildren) were out of town for the weekend. Whitney called her neighbours to say good morning and ask if they’d heard from anyone in Abaco – they hadn’t. She and her neighbours previously discussed whether or not they should relocate to the nearest shelter, which was at a church nearby. They opted not to evacuate because they lived well inland, at least five miles from the nearest canal or beach and the shelter was less than three blocks from where they lived. So, they decided to wait and see how the hurricane progressed before making any decisions.

By mid-afternoon, Whitney says it began to rain and what started as a drizzle quickly became a downpour. She’d never, in her 52-years of life, heard rain beating down on a roof with such ferocious intensity. She yelled for her dog to come inside. Whitney used a towel to dry him off, but he kept barking and snuggled against her like a newborn pup. She could tell he was afraid. The phone rang and it was her daughter checking in. But outside of rain and heavy, howling winds, there was nothing to report. Whitney told her that she was fine but truth be told she saw the fear in her dog’s eyes knowing that an animal’s instincts when it came to danger were alarms that trouble lay ahead. That look of fear and foreboding startled her.

She sat down and went on Facebook. The catastrophic level of destruction in Abaco was unimaginable and testimonials of the devastation that victims in the path of the storm were facing was already filtering across the archipelago. Whitney scrolled from one horrific story to another for nearly an hour before getting up to use the restroom.

While in the restroom, the electricity went off. Whitney knew it was inevitable but, in frustration, she still sucked her teeth with an aggressive saltiness that all islanders share when provoked. That sentiment instantly vanished when she tried to wash her hands and the water from her faucet was discoloured a light brown. She walked toward her living room to grab her telephone and the front area of her home was flooded with water nearly ankle deep. Dumbfounded and in complete shock, she started to mop and place towels all over the floor but the water continued to rise.

The wind was punching on the plywood that covered her windows, hounding and pounding at them, tempting them repeatedly to dislodge. It wasn’t until her front door flew open that Whitney began to appreciate the seriousness of her predicament. A tide of water came rushing in. She screamed for help as the water rose above her knees. She tucked her phone in her bra and treaded quickly towards her neighbours. They were making their way towards her. To this day, she can’t explain how the water rose so quickly.

The landscape outside was surreal. Except for a few speckled areas of diluted sunshine, the sky was now almost entirely dark. The rain was slapping against their bodies like clenched fists and the howling wind was so loud that it was hard to hear anything. Whitney saw fish swimming in her back yard and lobster gripping onto her neighbour’s roof. She tried to close the front door, but it was impossible against the weight and power of the water. She was forced to leave it open and make her way to the shelter. All of the cars in the neighbourhood were under water so they had to walk. Whitney’s heart was breaking. Hard as she looked and called for her beloved dog, he did not reappear. She was forced to leave without him.

Whitney and her neighbour were crying. Her neighbour’s sister, who resided in a settlement on another side of Grand Bahama near a canal, had to climb into her attic with her six-month old baby because the water was as high as her kitchen cabinets. Whitney prayed that her dog, daughter and grandchildren were okay. The hour had come when the storm was at its peak. The water was up to her chest and Whitney, who couldn’t swim thought more than once that she would die at any given moment. She and her neighbours locked elbows and made their way towards the shelter. They saw others heading in the same direction and without saying anything, strangers grabbed on and locked elbows with them as they fought their way to safety.

The roads and buildings were blanketed by a mixture of sewerage, canal and ocean water and it was challenging to discern what direction they were heading in. The wind was crying as the sky repeatedly cracked. Whitney could barely hear anything and her eyes burned from the ocean salt. When they turned a corner, her other neighbour, who was six feet tall, dropped and the water was up to his neck. He motioned for them to turn back. Getting to the church should have taken less than 10 minutes but they’d been walking for over an hour as thunder roared and lightning bolts blazed across the sky in anger.

It was hard for Whitney to keep up with the others in her group. That extra rest she yearned for earlier that morning now seemed so long ago. Her knees began to fail, she lost her balance and stumbled. Unlocked from her neighbours, the wind pushed her back and she swallowed a considerable amount of salt water, coughing then gasping for air as she struggled to breathe. In that moment, Whitney scraped the front of her right leg against an unidentified sharp object and the pain shot through her entire body like a cannon ball. She told the others to go on, leave her behind, but they grabbed her hand and helped her walk.

After circling around for another 20 minutes, they made it to the church. The front doors were locked and they had to bang loudly for the priest to open. Inside there were already at least 200 people sitting on the balcony. Some faces she recognised; people she hadn’t seen in years. Others she’d never met. Black, white, young and old. They were all together and united in prayer.

The front section of the church had to be evacuated because of all the water seeping in. So, incoming crowds of people filtered their way up to the balcony while Whitney and her neighbours grabbed a seat on the pulpit where they ultimately slept. The gaping wound on Whitney’s leg was still gushing with blood but someone helped to bandage it, giving her some relief. Inside the church was hot and her clothes were still wet. Throughout the night, children cried as pockets of people sung Christian hymns that anthemed the power of faith. Whitney’s phone wouldn’t turn on, either because of a dead battery or water damage, so she was entirely cut off from her family. That night she barely slept, still unaware of the critical infection now spreading in her right leg and hopelessly concerned over what further destruction tomorrow would bring.

This is The KDK Report.

• Part 2 of this series will be published next Monday, October 16.

• Nicknamed ‘The Prince of Podiatry’, Dr Kenneth D Kemp is the founder and medical director of Bahamas Foot and Ankle located in Caves Village, Western New Providence. He served as the deputy chairman for the Health Council for five years and he currently sits on the board of directors for the Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation in his role as co-vice-chairman.