Passengers including thirty students arrived at Lynden Pindling International Airport on Tuesday after being evacuated from the path of Hurricane Beryl. Photo: Dante Carrer/Tribune Staff
BY LEANDRA ROLLE
Tribune Chief Reporter
lrolle@tribunemedia.net
MORE than 30 Bahamians were airlifted home from Jamaica last night in a Bahamasair jet sent to evacuate residents threatened by Hurricane Beryl.
The 35-member group, which included 33 Bahamians and two Caribbean nationals - an Anguillan and Turks and Caicos Islander - arrived in New Providence late on Tuesday night and was greeted by relatives and friends when they landed at the Lynden Pindling International Airport (LPIA) after 9pm.
Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell, Labour Minister Pia Glover-Rolle and Education Minister Glenys Hanna-Martin were among those present to welcome the group upon their arrival. They greeted them with smiles, handshakes and hugs.
“It’s important for all of us to be here - not only the members of Cabinet but of course our chairman from Bahamasair. We’ve been working hard all day to ensure that we responded to the call of the students that wanted to come home,” Mrs Glover-Rolle told reporters last night.
“Of course, as a parent, I understand how the parents on this side also felt but it was important that we responded to the call. Of course, the students would’ve spoken for themselves. They’re grateful to be here and in their estimation out of harm’s way.”
Tuesday’s evacuation came after concerned students expressed their anxiety to The Tribune about remaining in Jamaica during the storm’s passage.
Beryl, a powerful Category 4 storm up to press time yesterday, is forecast to pass near Jamaica early today after making landfall in the Westward Islands on Monday, causing widespread destruction and killing at least six people.
Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis yesterday pledged the country’s commitment to providing emergency aid to affected countries when the “all clear is given”.
He said he had spoken with the prime ministers of Barbados, Jamaica and St Vincent and Grenadines and was awaiting further updates.
He said Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness was worried about the storm’s strength.
Forecasters said Beryl is expected to bring life-threatening winds and storm surges to Jamaica.
On Tuesday, Bahamian students said they had received a notice from the University of West Indies Mona Campus urging all but non-Jamaican residents to evacuate their halls by Tuesday.
They said some countries, like the Turks and Caicos Islands, have already sent for their residents.
When asked if the government was planning to evacuate students, Prime Minister Davis told reporters early yesterday morning that the government was closely monitoring the situation.
Hours later, the honorary consul in Jamaica, Alvita Knight, advised students to be at the airport in Kingston, Jamaica, at 2pm after Cabinet heeded the airlift request.
She also urged Bahamians who remained in Jamaica during the storm to stay in contact with her.
Comments
bahamianson 3 months ago
I hope all these people paid for the trip. This photo shows three individuals with Samsung and apple phones in their hands. If you can afford a samsung and ape phone, you can afford a plane ticket. I hope the gobment airlifts students from florida, georgis and other states as well.
Sickened 3 months ago
Yup. Bahamasair better go get my child in North Carolina when a hurricane is two days aways from possible landfall.
I guess there are no Bahamians in the Cayman Islands that are begging for a ride home?
Is Bahamasair flying them back as well???
moncurcool 3 months ago
Why?
Government needs to stop this foolishness of using tax payer money to fly these people home. If you make the choice to leave home to go to a school outside the country, then you need to be able to ay to get out when the time comes. That is called taking responsibility.
ExposedU2C 3 months ago
And to think Davis is unlawfully seizing cash from businesses to fritter away as he alone sees fit as minister of finance. See my post below to an article that appears in the business section of today's online Tribune.
Here we see pathetic Neil Hartnell kissing the greedy Snake's butt who in turn is kissing corrupt Stumpy's butt.
Anyone notice how both pathetic Hartnell and the greedy Snake deliberately avoided referring to corrupt Stumpy as our minister of finance? That's because they both know full well that corrupt Stumpy personally approved both the creation of the Revenue Enhancement Task Force (RETF) and its use of outrageous Gestapo tactics.
It is so patently absurd for corrupt Stumpy, as our minister of finance, to say, “it was the enforcement unit....they thought they had to show force to enforce," when in fact he himself personally sanctioned the formation of the RETF and its use of conspicuously well-armed forces. Corrupt Stumpy did this at the behest of Always Angry Wilson and Dumbo Halkitis as a fully intended means of outrightly (publicly) coercing and intimidating individuals and businesses labelled by his goon squad as tax dodgers.
And apparently corrupt Stumpy as our minister of finance had blessed these Gestapo tactics being used without regard to constitutionally guaranteed due process rights that would require obtaining a search and seizure warrant supported by a court order.
Perhaps more importantly though, notwithstanding the error of his ways, corrupt Stumpy has the gall to give a veil threat to all those he intends to personally target by saying: “We don’t expect to see that unless, as I said, it’s a circumstance where cash is being collected from a business establishment or, in cases where there’s some escalation of issues between the inquirers and the business places."
As for Commander Bertram Bowleg's kind remarks about corrupt Stumpy, he has obviously been told him to start singing for his supper. Much like the conniving, sinister and very greedy Snake!
We should have never tolerated the tyrannical behaviour of Demonic Minnis when he was PM. Doing so has obviously emboldened Davis to try transform our nation into an authoritarian led police state with himself as self-annointed Chief Tyrant.
ExposedU2C 3 months ago
P.S. And let's not forget that the conniving and greedy Snake, and his cabal of local and foreign cronies, are seeking to gain complete control of BPL and our nation's entire energy sector for mere pennies on the dollar of true value by, among other things, kissing corrupt Stumpy's dirty butt. The serious national security implications here cannot be overstated and must be made subject to the outcome of a duly held national referendum. Already our electricity bills and gasoline prices are much higher than they should be because of the many non-transparent back-room deals our corrupt politicians have allowed the very greedy and sinister Snake and his representatives to enter into with the government and state-owned enterprises. FOCOL's already outrageously high profits will soar and so will our electricity bills if BPL's power generation and distribution systems are turned over to the evil Snake and his most corrupt cabal. Why is Pintard so quiet on all of this ....... and why is The Tribune so incessantly focused on Taylor Casey rather than the "Corrupt Great Giveaway" of our nation's entire energy sector to a corrupt cabal?!
ExposedU2C 3 months ago
EARLIER BREAKING NEWS:
Rumour on the street has it slimy Freddy Boy Mitchell was overheard saying to one of his favourite 'friends':
"These same people who are always crying for government to use Bahamasair to repatriate as many illegal Haitian aliens as possible, or for bringing Bahamians abroad home during a pandemic, should just shut up and pay their fair share of taxes."
Ouch!
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