By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

WHEN it rains in Abaco, 13-year-old Brenden Dion Altidor does not react the way his father remembers children reacting to rain.

He closes the windows. He pulls the blinds.

Seven years ago, when Hurricane Dorian tore through Abaco, Brenden was six and spent part of the catastrophe perched in a tree after his stepfather, Kailan “Kay” McIntosh, put him there for safety and went back to help others.

Mr McIntosh never returned and is believed to have died in the storm.

Brenden survived, but his father, Mack Altidor, said the trauma remains visible in small, unusual behaviours years later.

“If it was raining outside,” Mr Altidor said, “you see like how kids would you know be looking outside and what have you? He would close the windows, like he would pull the blinds and stuff like that.”

“So he doesn't enjoy rain the way a kid enjoys rain or used to enjoy rain when I was growing up.”

The father spoke days after The Bahamas marked seven years since Dorian made landfall on September 1, 2019, devastating Abaco and Grand Bahama and leaving families still wrestling with deaths, disappearances and the psychological effects of surviving the strongest hurricane in modern records to make landfall in the country.

Dorian struck Abaco as a Category Five hurricane with sustained winds of 185mph. The National Hurricane Center warned at the time of gusts exceeding 220mph and storm surge of 18 to 23 feet. The storm later slowed dramatically over the northwestern Bahamas, subjecting parts of the region to destructive winds and catastrophic flooding for more than 48 hours.

For the Altidor family, the storm’s legacy is intensely personal.

Brenden was in Abaco with his mother, stepfather and other relatives when Dorian struck. His father was living in New Providence.

The Tribune reported in the immediate aftermath of the hurricane that McIntosh placed Brenden in a tree and told him to remain there while he went to help someone else. The child stayed where he had been left as floodwaters rose until another man found him and took him to the government complex.

McIntosh never made it back.

Mr Altidor said he sometimes thinks about the fact that McIntosh’s actions saved his son’s life.

“Even though he was my son's stepdad,” he said, “we had a relationship.”

He said he later developed a relationship with McIntosh’s mother and came to understand the toll her son’s disappearance had taken on her.

“I really felt based on my conversation with her, that was killing her,” Mr Altidor said, “like just that lack of closure and what have you, so I think it affected them tremendously.”

Their experience reflects one of Dorian’s enduring wounds.

At least 70 people were confirmed killed in Abaco and Grand Bahama, but the official death toll never fully accounted for the number of people who disappeared. The Coroner’s Court later dealt with 35 reported missing people, and 22 were declared dead following inquests. Some families still have not received death certificates for relatives whose bodies were never recovered.

Brenden also lost a cousin during the hurricane, his father said.

Mr Altidor said his son remembers being placed in the tree, although the family does not frequently discuss what happened.

The effects were serious enough that Mr Altidor delayed his son’s progress through school by a year so he could receive counselling.

“He's actually in grade eight now instead of grade nine,” Mr Altidor said, “because I held him back in school for about a year, just so he could do counselling for about a year.”

Brenden, who continues to live in Abaco with his mother, is nevertheless moving forward, his father said.

He has begun another school year, is making friends and is increasingly able to live like other children his age. “Some of his friends from his former school died,” Mr Altidor said, “and it's not something that they're going to forget right now.

“But he's coping.”

He said Brenden is “doing new things, making new friends, and going like you know, like a normal kid”.

For Mr Altidor, memories of the storm also bring difficult questions about decisions made before Dorian arrived.

He recalled urging Brenden’s mother on the night before the hurricane to leave the home where the family planned to ride out the storm.

“I told them to find higher ground,” Mr Altidor said, “and they decided that they were going to bunker down there.”

He said he had followed the forecasts and news reports and was uneasy about what he saw.

But Mr Altidor is careful not to turn that unease into blame.

“I wasn't too happy about the fact that I felt like you know my son as a child was put in harm's way,” he said, “but it's one of those things where no one knows what's going to happen.”

He also does not want that concern to diminish what McIntosh ultimately did for Brenden.