The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

AMERICANS Norvell and Mark Slezycki went on an emotional roller-coaster after Hurricane Dorian swept away their dream retirement home in Great Guana Cay, Abaco.

After struggling to determine their next move, the husband and wife decided to rebuild in the same location, this time constructing a home they hope could withstand category five hurricane winds.

Mr Slezycki told The Tribune he felt defeated when he first saw the pictures of his home’s destruction in 2019.

Only the foundation of the previous house remained intact, with the couple’s roof, family photo albums, furniture, and collectable books all gone.

“I just couldn’t believe that everything was gone,” Mrs Slezycki said. “It was just like a war zone and everything piled up. We don’t even know where our roof went. We never found our roof.”

The couple’s love for The Bahamas pushed them to use their life savings to rebuild the oceanfront home, construction of which began in January 2020 and is 95 per cent complete.

Lacking money to hire a contractor, Mr Slezycki rebuilt the house himself, though the COVID-19 pandemic delayed their rebuilding efforts.

“We couldn’t afford the wind insurance,” he said. “So, we saved a lot of money by not having that. And with the fact that the government had let us bring in materials duty-free and VAT-free for the first couple of years, we were able to afford to rebuild it.”

The couple spent about $90,000 on materials and furniture, repurposing some of the wood from the previous structure.

Mr Slezycki said one of the original house’s biggest flaws was a 10-foot overhanging roof pointing near the ocean and its lack of hurricane straps.

The new house does not have an overhanging roof but has an abundance of hurricane straps, hurricane windows, and doors.

“The house itself is strapped in half a dozen different ways that the old house wasn’t,” Mr Slezycki said. “I got support posts inside that are tied into the ground beams. It’s not going away this time.”

The retired couple was in Florida when Hurricane Dorian hit in 2019 and received gut-wrenching pictures of their destroyed home from a neighbour.

Mr Slezycki flew to Abaco several weeks later, but his wife couldn’t bear to visit initially.

The rebuilding process has been bittersweet for them because some of their neighbours never returned to the cay and have no plans to.

Asked if they were anxious about the upcoming hurricane season, they said they won’t live in “what ifs.”