2,500 People Missing In The Bahamas After Hurricane Dorian

2,500 People Missing In The Bahamas After Hurricane Dorian

September 11. 2019

Abaco island in the Bahamas

The Bahamian government has announced that 2,500 people are missing and feared dead in the wake of Category 5 hurricane Dorian, which hit the islands last week. The death toll currently stands at 50 people. 13,000 homes were destroyed by the storm, leaving 70,000 people homeless.

Locals reported the stench of death emanating from areas of Abaco. The government has been evacuating people from Grand Bahama and Abaco, as it has become a health risk, with dead bodies underneath the debris. 23 members of the family of award winning actor Sidney Poitier, who was born in Miami to Bahamian parents, are also missing, including his sister and her children.

The rebuilding effort will not be easy. Photos that have been released of the damaged areas in the Bahamas reveal flat land and homes that had been built very close to the shoreline. There are many places in the world where properties have been built very close to the sea or on sand, then were overcome by water during natural disasters. It is best to avoid building too close to the shoreline.

When rebuilding, the homes should be built on higher foundations and with elevated first floor entrances, accessed by stairs that extend several feet upwards onto the structures (homes not flush with the street, built feet above street level). Builders should avoid building basements. Rebar and cinder block should be used to construct the homes.

In some parts of my homeland Jamaica, the roofs are cement slab, as we too have experienced hurricanes in the past, such as the deadly 1988 hurricane Gilbert. As stated previously on the site, natural disasters strike all over this world. The best we can do is prepare for them.

As the Bahamas is a former British colony, whose head of state still remains the Queen of England, Elisabeth II (due to being a member state of the British Commonwealth of Nations), the British home office should give visas to Bahamians during this crisis. I realize with the appalling way the Home Office is behaving towards Caribbean and EU citizens, this will be like getting blood from a stone, but the Crown owes it to the Bahamas.