Obviously you left out the magic words "all other things being equal (or remaining the same)" but do they ever.

Data can be misused or misunderstood. If we go strictly on the premise of "the results of the study " then should it also follow that because of the non full recovery from these disasters and since the Bahamas is prone to get hit from storms at least every five years, then both our standard of living and quality of living should have deteriorated so much since 1926 after being hit by so many storms and hurricanes, that we should be living at a lower standard and a lower quality of life than our forefathers did in 1936? Since this is not the case and since we have lived in a continual progressive society there ends the credibility of your economic bullshit!

Help teams only arriving a whole week after the power is off. Thought the whole purpose of being a member of this body was to get instant relief or assistance in the time of need or a national disaster. Think BPL is playing games and making us, the consumer, pay for the hurricane damage. They keep the power off as long as possible, they still give a full billing for the month of October. You sweat your a$$ off in the dark and they make millions!

Foreign is better remember? Why did they not bring in extra help. What happens when the local workers become fatigued and their productivity declines or they start making mistakes? The process of restoring power becomes even more drawn out. Y'all ain't serious!

Obviously you did not read well. I did say that while the hurricane recovery activity is going on the government must seek to create new projects or new activities to keep the economy going. Secondly, whenever money exchanges hands some wealth is created, call it primary, secondary or whatever. When persons involved in the hurricane recovery get money in their hands and they spend it in the food store or pay their light bill or buy gas for their car this generates more money. Notice I also indicated that if work continues on Bah Mar and that project gets up and running whiles recovery work is going on or shortly thereafter after. Our economy has always been fragile and difficult to grow simply because too much of a dollar spent locally ends up leaving the economy and going abroad. That is why government must promote and stimulate inter-island commerce, where local products are traded between the islands and given preference to imports. Government can also cut the enormous oil import bill by leaning more towards solar energy and stop being sucked in by the big oil companies and their local representatives to stay dependent on fossil fuels. And of course corruption and government wastage must be reduced and controlled. Too much of the tax dollar is not getting value for money. Then include the giving away of our natural resources into the mix, be it prime beaches and land to hotel properties or arragonite to foreign cronies. Rather than being saddled with a multi-billion national debt and unbearable tax burden and the threats of credit downgrades, every single Bahamian should be a millionaire. You do the math!

*18 deaths in NC due to drowning or persons being washed away by surging waters not 28

Sheep runner you may be right. The death toll in the USA is now up to 36. There were 19 deaths in North Carolina and at least 28 of them happened when persons got in their vehicles and tried to drive through flooded areas. They either became trapp in their cars and drowned or were washed away by overflowing rivers. In Haiti most persons are killed by mudslides which itself is caused by the cutting down of trees on the mountain slopes. In passing NEMA has delivered over 5 million bottles of water in the US and delivered over 1.5 million hot meals. Here some people haven't had warm meal since Tuesday of last week or had a bottle of cold water.

There is still a call for government to get ice and water and maybe even warm food to persons in the inner city of New Providence. While most of these residents have suffered no major damage from the storm they have been without electricity for over a week. Businesses in these areas who have generators may also consider making outlets for persons to charge their phones and even s microwave or two for them to warm food and baby bottles... Just a suggestion.

Thirty Four people have died from Hurricane Mathew in the US. Seventeen of the deaths occurred in North Carolina which is more likely a State the person's evacuated to to avoid. There were no deaths in the Bahamas. The toll for Haiti keeps changing: a popular low figure of 300 and an extremely high number of 900 people. Will the real figure ever be known?

Then one must also how and when to issue evacuation orders. Take for example students who were evacuated from Jamaica and were brought to Nassau almost getting a direct hit from the hurricane. The same happened to residents of some family islands that were not affected by the hurricane. And so as not to appear to be laying blame, many thousands of persons were evacuated from South Florida only to go further North and directly into the path of the storm. Some lost their vehicles in floods and others had to run out of hotels where roofs blew off or windows blew open during the storm.