Hurricane Dorian death toll up to 58

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE official death toll from Hurricane Dorian has risen to 58, according to Police Commissioner Anthony Ferguson.

He said 49 people have been declared dead in Abaco and nine have been declared dead in Grand Bahama.

During his address to the United Nations last week, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis noted that with more than 600 people still declared missing after the storm, the death toll is expected to rise significantly.

Officials yesterday were not able to say whether there has been a decline in the number of people reported missing.

Bahamas Power and Light, meanwhile, announced that electricity has been restored to two communities in Abaco over the weekend, the first two to receive power.

Electricity was restored to the South Abaco communities of Winding Bay and Casuarina Point.

“These are the first two communities to be returned to power with the use of the 1.8 megawatt generator shipped to Abaco from Exuma early last week,” BPL said in a statement. “BPL employees on Moore’s Island were able to bring that community back on shortly after the storm had passed. The main overhead transmission line is powered up, and the team is now continuing restoration in the south with some challenges along the way. We are bringing the communities of the south on as soon after as possible.”

BPL said its main substations in Marsh Harbour sustained major damage, prompting the need for a temporary substation site. Equipment for the site is being prepped for transport from New Providence to Abaco and it is hoped that when connected, power will be distributed to critical infrastructure in Abaco: the government complex, the air and sea port, the Water and Sewerage Corporation plant and the clinic.

Algernon Cargill, one of the government’s hurricane relief coordinators for Abaco, said yesterday that the government complex is currently being powered by generators fixed by the Dutch military.

“We are seeking to provide full functionality to the government complex in Marsh Harbour,” he said. “That’s a hub for most activities. Our focus is to bring back the essential services and most of those are centred around the government complex where all the government offices are. In addition, we were very successful in having the petroleum companies reopen their presence in Abaco. We have fuel for sale, we’re providing water to the essential buildings which is abnormal now, the airport is fully functional and the government complex is fully powered up so after we have the essential services restored in Abaco, we’ll start the clean-up phase and that will be managed by the Ministry of Works and Ministry for Disaster Preparedness. We’ve stabilised on the ground in Abaco.

“The government complex was cleaned by the Dutch military,” he added. “We’re gonna have it sanitised again. The quicker we can create the feeling of normalcy, that’s going to spill over. The grounds of the complex were fully cleared by the Jamaican military who have been a great help to the Bahamas. I want to recognise the excellent contribution by them, they’ve cleaned the airport grounds also, moving all the trees, so you can hardly notice from the grounds of the airport that there was a hurricane.”

Yesterday, the Progressive Liberal Party criticised the government’s response to the hurricane, claiming that the people of Moore’s Island feel abandoned by the government and that the Sandy Point water system failed when its generator malfunctioned.

“The people in the Abaco cays complain that the security situation is deteriorating there,” PLP Chairman Fred Mitchell said in a statement. “There is little indication of a government presence. There are reports of marauding gangs, occupying people’s homes and vandalising and stealing private property throughout the island of Abaco. There is no indication of a government presence in the Abaco Cays. They are crediting the Americans with what aid has reached them. Their main concern now is security and the safety of their person and property.”

Comments

Well_mudda_take_sic says...

Is this meat head of a Police Commissioner trying to prove he can count to 1,000 within a year?

Posted 30 September 2019, 9:37 a.m. Suggest removal

Sickened says...

Lol. We ga be hearing about this for a while then.

Posted 30 September 2019, 4:27 p.m. Suggest removal

ohdrap4 says...

How do you declare someone missing?
You REPORT someone missing.
You DECLARE someone dead because they cannot protest.
However, by the power
vested in me, I declare 39 idiots.

Posted 30 September 2019, 10:07 a.m. Suggest removal

Chucky says...

Guess they bury 10 in the mass grave for every one that they count as dead and process the corpse.

Posted 30 September 2019, 7:29 p.m. Suggest removal

Ton_Heijnmans says...

Why has not-one spiritual Service Of Remembrance been performed for all of these human beings, yet?

After Nine - Eleven, 9/11, there were ceremonies everywhere.

You all held your weird, strange looking, hands in the air, hail ya halla ma louja singalong with the halfway break for temporal and political bandstanding. José means Joanna in the highestest and all that Angrycan carryon.
...
Not an altar in sight. Lots of old men from The Olde Folks Home sitting at a height above the lowly sheeple (for some strange reason?).

300 dead Hate'n-em ones.
600 "missing"... some still dead-in-a-ditch four weeks later.
Beyond rotting.

No Service of Remembrance I've ever seen what didn't list out the names of **the recently, dearly departed**.

Usually .... throughout the known world, no matter what the schism and religulous (mis-)conception.... photographs or artistic portraits are placed on-display.

Always: the direct family of the dearly departed are present.
Always: the service takes place in the language of the surviving, family members, and/ or their relatives and cousins;
Always the form of the ritual is performed IN THE DEATHING BELIEF systems and unique deathing rituals of-those-people.
300 of them swept off the face if the planet, and nothing from you people?
Nothing but raving, frothy mouth, hatred and disgusting, unmitigated ignorance.

But hey? Maybe Captain Kirk ordered Lieutenant Scotty to beam all those Hate'nem types up onto the U.S.S. Enterprise, right after Spock told him it was "logical Jim" that all those foreigner Hate'nem types would surely perish when the tsunami arrived?
tSu means HARBOR
na'mi means WAVE.

HARBOR as in MARSH HARBOR.
WAVE as in LOTS OF DEAD FOLKS.
The ones who used to live .... IN the Harbor.
Get it?

Maybe their missing in Oslo? Maybe they flew out for a short break RIGHT before D-Day struck? Maybe they'll climb out if a big bunker the day after tomorrow? A big storm bunker that they never told anyone about?

Posted 30 September 2019, 8:31 p.m. Suggest removal

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