The Tribune

WITH talk of a commission of inquiry into the events surrounding Hurricane Dorian and its aftermath still swirling, the FNM has effectively told the government to get on with it.

After Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis suggested that an independent inquiry – either by police or a commission of inquiry – has not been ruled out, the FNM weighed in yesterday. If it was a game of poker, this would be a call, but it’s not a game, and the hurricane and its devastation are not a political toy to be played with.

The truth is, there absolutely should be a thorough inquiry into Dorian – and a commission of inquiry would be the proper way to do it.

The trauma and aftermath of the storm still resonates throughout The Bahamas. There are those who lived through it, there are those who were displaced by it, there are those trying to rebuild, and there are those who have lost close friends and family, and whose grief in too many cases remain unresolved.

In today’s Tribune, you can read of one family stuck waiting for death certificates – and they are not alone.

Sitha Silien tells of how the wait for a death certificate for her mother and brother have left the rest of the family unable to move on. She is unable to proceed with her citizenship application because a death certificate is needed for her mother – while her father is unable to remarry.

Still others are afraid to come forward at all because of a fear that they do not have the right documents and could risk deportation if they try to determine the simple truth of who has died and who has not.

Four years on, people are still left unable to rebuild their lives – and sometimes not even knowing the process they have to go through to be able to move on.

One official told The Tribune yesterday about the process people need to go through to establish that a family member has died and to receive a death certificate – but many are unaware of this process, including Sitha Silien, who said she did not know.

She tells instead of “these people running me round and round” as she tries to get answers.

A commission of inquiry ought to take place to establish where the failings were as the storm hit and in the rescue attempts afterwards – although we must acknowledge that this was a monster storm and there was no way to truly protect against its devastation. Still, lessons can be learned – and must be learned as we face a future of greater risk of storms from climate change.

More than that, though, we need to help the survivors to deal with the hurdles they still face.

Some of that can simply come down to an information campaign to let people know exactly what they need to do.

But perhaps the creation of some organisation, perhaps non-governmental, to bring people together to help them to get the answers they need without the fear of risking deportation could be another way forward.

For every answer these families have not received is also an answer that we as a nation have not received.

We still do not know for sure the true number of those who died. We still have questions about bodies recovered after the storm.

Perhaps we might never know for sure – but we should do all we can to establish the facts, and to know how to deal with such a situation should it ever, heaven forbid, happen again.

We may fear a future storm. We may fear another Dorian the next time such a storm tilts towards our islands. But we should never fear the truth – and we should do all we can to strive to ensure it is revealed.

We owe it to all those affected by the storm – and we should take extraordinary steps to ensure we support all our brothers and sisters devastated by Dorian.