Bahamas kinship prompts support

Efforts met with caution; some fear well-intended could hamper rescue

Relieved South Floridians have turned to their close neighbors in the Bahamas with an outpouring of support since Hurricane Dorian made landfall there Sunday.

The massive storm pummeled the area for more than two days, blowing off roofs, flooding barrier islands and forcing thousands to flee for safety. At least five people died.

Now Bahamians living in South Florida, boaters, businesses and community groups are collecting supplies and planning relief operations by air and by sea. But their efforts are also being met with caution out of fear the well-intended could hamper the rescue efforts already underway. Many ports and airports on the islands remain closed, and fuel is scarce.

“It’s kind of agonizing, all this waiting. You can’t just go over,” said Chris Rotella, part of a group of 20 Broward businesses that have raised $165,000 on its GoFundMe page, Hope 4 Hope Town.

The local businesses, he said, includes private aviation companies such as JetScape and Tropic Air, which have offered to fly supplies to the Bahamas. It also includes Riverside Market in Fort Lauderdale, whose three restaurants function as drop-off points for medical supplies and hygiene products.

Now that Dorian has started accelerating up Florida’s coastline, Rotella said the real work can

begin. “We can’t just deliver aid immediately. There is no landing strip that is safe,” he said, adding that aid should arrive as soon as Friday. “We have to do reconnaissance flights first because all the safe harbor routes are now filled with upside down boats.”

Because of the uncertainty over which Bahamian ports and airfields were damaged by Dorian, private vessels may be steering “into chaos” if they try to arrive with supplies, said Earl Miller, director of the National Association of the Bahamas.

Miller, whose nonprofit works with Bahamian customs officials and the Bahamas Consulate General Miami, said private vessels should first contact the association by email at emiller@bahamas.com. The organization will forward ship and plane manifests ahead to Bahamas customs officials.

“What we’re trying to avoid is a 70-foot private yacht showing up haphazardly, not telling customs that they’re coming, and tying up the relief aid flowing through,” Miller said. “We would be crazy to discourage anyone from bringing aid, but it has to be done right.”

A number of efforts are under way to collect supplies, with businesses, cities and places of worship around South Florida collecting non-perishable food and supplies.

Kaisa Pace of Fort Lauderdale is helping with the Hope 4 Hope Town effort. She grew up partly in the Bahamas and taught school there after college. She still has three homes in the Bahamas and doesn’t know how they fared. But she said what she’s most worried about is providing aid to friends on the island.

“The ease of access and the beautiful white beaches are what draw you there,” she said. “But what keeps you coming back is when you see an amazing tightknit group. It feels like you’re coming home to Abaco to see friends. It’s an amazing community we come back to see year after year.”

She said it’s been hard to reach many of them by phone, but she’s learned through social media they’re safe.

State Rep. Shevrin Jones, D-West Park, is leading another Bahamas relief effort. His father’s family is from the Bahamians and many relatives suffered devastation. He posted videos of cousins inside a structure with a collapsed roof and broken windows.

“We need assistance fast. Please pray for us. We can’t get down. It’s a twostory structure. the door is locked,” a man in the video says.

Jones said his relatives were able to evacuate and “everyone is just waiting to see what the next move is going to be,” he said.

He was accepting donations at his father’s church in Pembroke Park and has been working with Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried to arrange planes to distribute the goods. The response was overwhelming, he said, as crates of bottled water and canned food poured in.

South Florida is home to more than 20,000 Bahamians, many settling in Pompano Beach and West Park in Broward County, Canal Point in Palm Beach County and Brownsville in Miami-Dade County.

And the island nation is popular with just about anyone who loves the water, including boaters, divers, fishermen and cruise ship passengers.

“It’s what the Keys were 40 or 50 years ago, very laid-back, you’re on your own time,” said Bob Hatcher, a Palm Beach County school administrator who regularly takes his sports fishing boat to the islands. “It doesn’t matter if you start fishing at 7 or 10 o’clock. You start when you’re ready. It’s a fantastic place.”

Hatcher visited the area with his family several times during the summer but plans to give the island time to rebuild before he returns.

“There’s a lot of people who would like to help, to loan equipment, but I don’t know if it’s even reasonable to run a generator. A lot of homes are destroyed. A lot of the island is still submerged,” Hatcher said. “I’m just not sure what the average person can do other than donate to the Red Cross and other legitimate organizations. There are also a lot of scams out there.”

Hatcher’s old boss, former Palm Beach County Schools Superintendent Art Johnson, has also visited the Bahamas dozens of times on everything from a small single engine boat to a fully equipped yacht. He said he and his wife love the water, having waterfront homes in Boca Raton and the Keys, but he said the Bahamas is the perfect place to escape.

“We love its beauty and its primitive nature. It’s the antithesis of South Florida,” Johnson said. “We’re very urban and it’s very tropical. A natural beauty, a great food culture and great fishing and diving. It’s neat to just sit out and watch what’s going on in the ocean.”

They’ve spent weeks at a time in Bahamas, including the Abacos, the area that was hardest hit by the storm.

A trip to the Bahamas “is very rewarding, even though it can be extremely scary in conditions you don’t have any control over.” He said he’s experienced some rough patches at sea, especially in the days when hurricane forecasting was less precise. Although he knows the potential destruction nature can cause, he was still surprised how destructive Dorian was.

“There are very few places in the Bahamas that sit just an inch above sea level. Many are five or ten feet above the ground,” he said. “But when you have 20 foot storm surge, it can just wipe you off the map.”