It is 2019 and mid-summer in the Bahamas, hot calm days prevail over the archipelago. Melissa and I had taken an assignment to caretake a private island in the Abaco's in July for near a month while our close friends Angie and Steve took time away in Florida and over on Eleuthera. We had flown in our own aircraft tying it down at the airport in Treasure Cay then driving the island tender over to the cay. We were met on the dock by familiar four-legged friends who we were to care for once again as done in past years. They were happy to see us!
July gives way to August where on Monday 19th the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida identifies a tropical wave in western Africa. Sahara dust was inhibiting its formation until emerging off the land mass into the tropical Atlantic Ocean. The wave born of an elongated trough of low pressure becomes more organised four days later to classify as Tropical Depression Five on the 24th August 2019, 805 miles east-southeast of Barbados.
A deep ridge steered the depression westward toward the Lesser Antilles. It is a mass of warm, moist air rising off the warm ocean surface creating large convective clouds. As the warm air is expanding and rising more moist air rushes in from the oceans surface. The Earth's rotation causes the air to begin spinning, anti clockwise in the northern hemisphere and opposite in the southern hemisphere (bearing the title Typhoon.) The system soon developed a center core about 12 miles wide and being the fourth depression of the year is named "Dorian".
On August 21st, while on our private island, friends Ken Chaplin called to say there were sailing their catamaran in the neighbourhood and asking to visit the next day. Early the next morning our portable marine VHF radio came to life with Ken's familiar voice saying they would anchor out off the main dock in front of the residences on the cay. The weather was changing from the usual calm pastel blues and turquoises with rains and darkening skies prevailing around the islands. Launching their small inflatable they motored to shore. We walked the island and sat sat on the patio swapping stories and concerns about a developing hurricane looking well on its menacing way toward us. I advised Ken strongly to head southward after our visit giving him time to find safe harbour out of a storms threatening path over the ocean. They had property over on the mainland of Abaco in Leisure Lee where he preferred to tie up his vessel 'like a spider web' inside their canal for safe keeping?
Through August 26th and 26th rain bands slowly wrapped around the center of the growing system just missing Barbados with tropical storm force winds and heavy rains. The storm started a northwesterly track toward and hitting St.Lucia to enter the Caribbean Sea predicted by the Hurricane Center to pass over or near the Dominican Republic where mountainous terrain could damage the formation of the storm? Dorian however took a more northerly track passing east of Puerto Rico hitting the U.S. Virgin Islands as a Category 1 hurricane making landfall on St.Thomas.
Our time care taking was coming to a close and watching Hurricane Dorian now taking aim directly at us I decided to run a day earlier than Melissa's scheduled commercial flight out of Treasure Cay back to Nassau. Our Cessna 172 taking near an hours flight in clear blue skies over spectacular scenery arriving at my FBO Odyssey Aviation to seek safe shelter in their hangar. I wondered what on earth could be in store for these precious islands in the northern Bahamas? Angie had returned to the cay and I bid both ladies farewell taking the tender over to Crew Harbour where our Bahamian friend Lington would take my place on the island. Steve would be flying in his plane back from Eleuthera saying they had thought about sitting out the storm on Green Turtle Cay? I pleaded again they fly south to New Providence to save themselves, their dogs and their aircraft. A good decision!
The storms track missing all high predicted terrain now entered much more favourable conditions for intensifying and by August 30th Dorian grew into a Category 2 hurricane and indeed grew still further reaching major hurricane status that same day. The next 24 hours saw Dorian reach Category 4, a dangerous threat upping even further the following day to Category 5; now a far different catastrophic threat where little can stand chance of survival that stood in its path. On September 1st 2019, the National Hurricane Center reconnoissance aircraft recorded sustained winds of 180 mph (285km/h) with minimum pressure of 913 mbar's; the strongest recorded storm was aiming directly toward Elbow Cay in the Abaco group where our favourite settlement of Hope Town would surely never be the same. The islands fate becoming sadly even worse with the storm now crawling toward them at 5 mph in a due west direction threatening all the precious out-islands along the north Abaco coastline, namely Man-o-War Cay, Green Turtle Cay, Treasure Cay, Bakers Bay and on to Grand Bahama. When a Category 5 suddenly appears as a perfect storm the beast portrays the most ominous threat and this one now headed on an accurate track toward our precious communities. The 'eye' of Dorian taking on that perfect deadly concentric circle, a force unseen anywhere else in nature. To slow in forward speed to a near crawl spelled a fate not seen before in our country.
Hurricane Dorian impacted Hope Town at 12.40pm with sustained winds of 185 mph (285 km/h) the strongest storm in modern history to impact the Bahamas since records were kept since 1851; winds gusting over 220 mph (355 km/h) with a barometric pressure of 910 millibars! Sealing the fate of our gorgeous out-island settlements Dorian tragically slowed even further to an unprecedented 1 mph forward speed ravaging the island for hours on end with record devastating winds, driving rain, embedded tornados and deadly storm surge. Nothing nature made or man-made could eventually withstand the continuous onslaught. Tops of palm trees were sheared off completely. Heavy thick poured & reinforced concrete walls succumbed to the ceaseless intense pressure bombarding neighbouring houses and vehicles. Yachts, pleasure craft, ferries and sailboats of all sizes, secured more than they had ever been, were picked up as if weightless toys to be scattered into the bush, capsized and flung into useless heaps. The islands would be literally shredded of near everything standing. In reality as comparison, Dorian was an F5 tornado that would stay overhead near 48 hours!
This monster storm tracked the least forward distance in a 24-hour period recorded for any Atlantic major hurricane since the hurricane of 1965 named 'Betsy' that I went through living in Nassau as a youngster. An experience described in my autobiography 'Sharks in the Runway'. Residents in Elbow Cay and Marsh Harbour saw blue skies appear as a beautiful concentric circle above them with the calm eye of the storm now overhead. People came out of their hiding to photograph the phenomena while also looking for safer shelter as the second half of the deadly storm approached. Damage was about to get tragically even worse.
Increased tides in recent days were experienced in the Bahamas ahead of the storm and sustained winds pushed the seawater into a 23ft high storm surge sweeping away hundreds of buildings submerging large areas of low-lying island with dangerous rip-currents occurring. Witnesses describing how the water was 3 feet one minute and within five minutes up near 30 feet! Communities of sub-standard illegal Haitian housing called 'The Mudd' and 'Pigeon Pea' were crushed by the wall of water and screaming winds making the fragile inadequate homes a pile of matchwood and rubbish. Huge shipping containers floating inland on the surge from the port acted as ruthless battering rams destroying everything in their path. There were an estimated 3000 people once living there but records of their movement from the storm scant and near impossible. Many desperate souls fled to the nearby churches to huddle inside where eventually the walls collapsed crushing many while countless others washed hopelessly out to sea?
Dorian crept at a snails pace over Hope Town and Marsh Harbour. The destruction only describable as 'apocalyptic' with the airport completely submerged tearing aircraft hangars off their foundations while gutting the modern terminal.
Dorian pounded the islands relentlessly for 22 hours. Children were missing, torn from their parents arms to disappear into the watery void of the storm. The death toll went from two and three to in the twenties and then forties. Haitian loss would be estimated in the hundreds never to be tallied accurately but estimated at possibly in the thousands? We learned from Ken that the huge storm surge had entered Leisure Lee tearing his beautiful catamaran from its safe harbour and seemingly effortlessly flipping the 42ft vessel upside down and depositing it in the bushes to be found later on dry land completely destroyed.
The second half of the hurricane proved even worse than the first long grueling bombardment Hope Town & Marsh Harbour suffered through. The scenes during the calm eye were bad enough with houses damaged, docks in bad shape and some boats being sunk but what was to come no one could imagine.
After countless hours of fear and devastation with screaming consistent winds of 185 mph gusting 225 mph with added internal tornados, Hope Town and Marsh Harbour would be forever changed as we knew it. Disastrous scenes became hard to comprehend with such beauty being reduced to shredded rubble and shattered wood. Gorgeous sailboats and private yachts picked up out of the water and crushed into unsalvageable heaps. Boats previously well secured now stacked on top of each other forming huge piles of unusable debris. Residents walked the cluttered streets in complete dismay of their world literally and simply 'gone'. Also gone were the lifeline ferries of the Abaco Cays. A few would be salvaged not long after but in the meantime folks were simply stranded where they had taken shelter.
The town of Marsh Harbour was truly near a 100% destroyed. Every structure there suffered immeasurable damage. The General Hardware, marine stores, banks, restaurants, all shredded as if through a giant grater. Residents who lived there later said 'all the landmarks were now gone making us not know exactly where we were!' With the airport flooded and runways underwater there would be no large fleet of relief aircraft able to make the approach for days frustrating an uncomprehending group of survivors. The only immediate help would be from The U.S. Coastguard helicopters with local Defense Force officers and crew.
It would take several days of good weather to allow the floodwaters to finally recede. Once the runway in Marsh Harbour and Treasure Cay opened, with special permission given to us local relief crews, were the supplies on the move and surviving residents brought back in droves to the new Relief Center erected at Odyssey Aviation at Nassau International Airport. Slightly more south in Great Abaco the settlement of Sandy Point also became a staging area for light aircraft to arrive from Nassau and Florida. The relief of supplies and volunteers were overwhelming. The effort was magnificent from local Bahamians, Floridians, Armed Forces and including several other counties!
I contacted my friend John, meteorologist at NBC Miami sending him some images from Abaco which he kindly broadcast. Most, if not all, of the Florida television stations followed suit along with national news media from all over the world broadcasting nightly about our devastated northern islands asking viewers for relief supplies to be donated. The flood of supplies began immediately. At a national football game a tribute to the Bahamas was hung and millions became aware of our plight and the incomprehensible rebuilding we were facing for years to come.
The massive relief effort was now in full swing. Helicopters, seaplanes, private aircraft and eventually commercial airlines all began the huge evacuation of the hard hit areas. It was estimated the population of New Providence rose by 30,000 people!
Odyssey Aviation hangar was the nucleus of the arrivals coming from Abaco & Grand Bahama. The organisation was amazing to witness as 6000 people flowed through here tending to the needs of everyone arriving with barely the clothes on their backs having lost literally everything they possessed.
We watched friends arrive on Delta Airlines witnessing the Captain & First Officer personally assisting those in need down their stairway.
The ferocious storm after finally leaving Elbow Cay, Marsh Harbour and the small neighbouring cays lying along the northern shores of Great Abaco, Treasure Cay was next in line for the grueling punishment of 'Dorian' still traveling painfully slowly westward. After decimating Man-o-War Cay, Green Turtle Cay and Bakers Bay, Grand Bahama would have no escape receiving the relentless eye wall crawling at a frustrating 1mph destroying the far eastern settlements almost completely off the map with punishing winds and unprecedented storm surge.
The bonefishing lodge of Deep Water Cay that I used to fly guests in my seaplane was completely destroyed, down to mere patches of concrete foundation left. 20 to 25ft of water flooded the area completely and the only way to rescue later the next day would be by jet skis. Vast acreages of pine barrens would appear as if lakes with occasional roof-eves just showing above the waterline. Residents that had remained forced only to climb into their ceilings in hope the water did not drown them within their own homes. As the massive storm reached near the center of the huge island it became near stationary pulverizing the island beyond imagination.
Low lying local animal shelters were hit hard by the hurricane with the Humane Society of Grand Bahama's experiencing stronger storm surges than ever imagined. Workers had attempted to help the animals before retreating to their attic crawl space tragically losing almost half of the 190 dogs in their care from drowning. The Red Cross estimates that 13,000 homes were destroyed and damages exceeding $7 billion making for the costliest storm in Bahamian history. Dorian stalled above Grand Bahama decimating the Freeport International Airport and the oil refinery spilling countless hundreds of gallons of crude throughout the neighbouring area.
Dorian's eye wall under was under going a replacement phase with cooler upwelling water from the storms disturbance finally weakening the intensity back down to a Category 4 status. It stayed above the island for another whole day before finally beginning a track northward, barely sparing Florida the wrath while drifting all the way up the United States eastern coastline wreaking havoc. By September 6th Dorian reached landfall at Capt Hatteras forward to Newfoundland and Nova Scotia dissipating on reaching Greenland.
On September 3, our Prime Minister stated, "Our urgent task will be to provide food, water, shelter, safety and security. Additional food will be delivered by NEMA tomorrow." He confirmed that Dorian was "the greatest national crisis in our country's history" projected that as of Saturday, September 7, at least 70,000 people are homeless on Grand Bahama and the Abaco Islands.
With Dorian long gone to our north still causing damage along the eastern seaboard of the United States & Canada the grim task of search & recovery began. There has been estimate of 70 souls lost and recovered but hundreds, if not thousands of undocumented people vanished, more likely still buried in the huge piles of rubble with so many washed out to sea. The true figure of human loss doubtful ever to be known?
Our Bahamas does not however disregard the welfare of our animals in the most part. With news spreading internationally of pets being abandoned or simply lost in the storm teams of animal support groups flooded the islands with assistance. Crews of volunteers arrived with their private planes and special search equipment. Cages by the hundreds were donated and animals is desperate need saved and caught to be returned to make shift shelters in the capital city. Each labeled, named and medically treated with veterinary attention where needed. Florida shelters offered to accept animals in need of new homes while other more fortunate creatures were reunited with their owners who came in search. Crews of rescue aircraft came and went as fast as they could be loaded! Rescue volunteers from our Bahamas and many other places worked tirelessly from dawn until dusk. The rescue a heartwarming experience to witness.
A month after the storm there were even some precious moments when reports of a miracle find came to light. With advanced search equipment signs of life buried under heaps of twisted waste and a crushed refrigerator. A local dog still alive and surviving off rainwater unable to escape was discovered. They called her "Miracle" and was brought to safety with a happy end of being adopted in America!
We are now four months later, still shell-shocked reminiscing about the gorgeous places we photographed and walked. Islands that were favourites of us who live here and the countless visitors that came religiously each year to stay. They were picture perfect postcard islands where some visitors had retired and invested in their dream properties. It will take years of hard work and countless investment to bring our northern islands and cays back as we knew them. The natural environment difficult to replace. Slowly, very slowly, the healing has begun and along with the resilience of the out-island communities bound and determined to recover our Abaco and Grand Bahama rise out of the wreckage. They will be beautiful yet again although taking decades to fully restore? So posted here some before & after images to show the forces that struck one September morn.
*Editors Note: So many of the photographs were not watermarked so as to give credit to all our Out-Island photographers, a warm thank you for all your efforts!
** DONATIONS would be gratefully received to the Red Cross Society of the Bahamas!
© Photographs of 'Islands as they were' & some Relief Efforts at Odyssey Aviation by: Paul W.J.Harding
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Thank you all.
