Hurricane Dorian: In the Bahamas, thousands ‘hopelessly’ seek refuge in Florida

GREAT ABACO, Bahamas -- Pastor Clayton McIntosh heard the rumor. So did Terrece Bootle-Laing, the chief administrative officer in Great Abacos' northern district. So did the nurses, customs officers and the shelter dwellers.

Throughout storm-battered towns that dot the Abaco island chain, Bahamians thought they heard something that offered hope to those whose lives were upended by Hurricane Dorian: The United States was waving travel requirements for refugees.

Only it wasn't true.

Homeless Bahamians -- thousands, if not hundreds -- who spent hours Saturday waiting in blistering heat, clutching their belongings wouldn't make it to Florida.

"They want to believe in something," said McIntosh, whose church, Faith Walk Church of God in Cooper's Town, served as a shelter last week from the strongest storm in history to batter the Caribbean islands.

At Treasure Cay's airstrip Saturday afternoon, a customs officer turned a man away from a private flight headed for West Palm Beach, saying he didn't have a valid visa or U.S. passport. The man ran toward another plane before a Palm Beach Post reporter could approach him.

"People want to hope that the rumor is true because they want to believe in something," McIntosh said, "then they find out it isn't."

McIntosh heard the U.S. was offering shelter for three days. Bootle-Laing, whose official title is island administrator, heard it was three years.

"I don't know where the rumor surfaced," Bootle-Laing said. "But when most people aren't prepared to cope with the difficulty of lack of water and lack of electricity, the news more or less spread quickly."

Last week U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott wrote the Trump administration, asking for a relaxation of travel requirements as a way to provide relief and shelter with loved ones in the United States. About 20,000 Bahamians reportedly live in South Florida.

Most of those who had been lured to Great Abacos Airport had lived in Marsh Harbour, a once-bustling port town crippled by the record-breaking Category 5 hurricane. Dorian's powerful wind and storm surge tumbled buildings, crushed cars and reduced crude dwellings on Marsh Harbour's outskirts to heaps of debris.

The island's commercial hub was "utterly devastated," Bottle-Laing said. So it wasn't shocking, she added, to see hundreds of Abacoans waiting at airports, some of them periodically rushing small cargo planes, begging to get seats on board.

"It speaks volumes that so many people are willing to wait hopelessly to get out," she said. Some are fortunate. If they have a U.S. passport or visa that didn't wash away when storm water flooded the island, they can board flights chartered by nonprofits or fly out of Nassau where commercial airlines were only briefly interrupted by the storm.

The Eagles' Wings Foundation, a West Palm Beach-based nonprofit, flew about 110 refugees off the island Friday and Saturday.

Whitney and Shauqwan Bain -- a young couple from Murphy Town, a neighborhood in Marsh Harbour devastated by the storm -- boarded an Eagle's Wings flight to West Palm Beach on Saturday after waiting nearly 12 hours at two airports. They both had valid visas, they said.

The Bains and their families rode out the storm on plywood slabs in the mangled attic of their one-story home. The roof flew off halfway through the storm. They watched debris fly past and storm waters creep painfully close to the crown molding right under the ceiling beneath them.

"It was so bad that you just accepted that this was probably the end," said Shauqwan Bain, 24.

Such were the stories from some of the nearly 6,000 people who lived in Marsh Harbour or the devastated shantytowns nearby.

When the Bains did survive, it felt "like a zombie apocalypse," said Whitney Bain, 27. "People in wet clothes just tore through the town, looking for supplies, for food, for a way out."

The Bains, like countless others, weren't sure whether they lost family or friends in the storm. On an island with downed phone lines and no cell reception, they considered anyone they hadn't seen in shelters or on the streets missing.

"People probably think I'm missing," Whitney Bain said.

The communications blackout fueled more misinformation. Some Bahamians on nearby islands believed the 120-mile Abaco Island chain was entirely decimated by the storm. They couldn't call to check on family.

Nakeda Stubbs, a customs officer from Nassau, flew to Treasure Cay Saturday to find her mother after hearing she was safe in Cooper's Town, 35 miles north of Marsh Harbour. The homes in inland Cooper's Town were largely still standing, though some roofs had been ripped off and windows blown in by Dorian's 220 mph gusts. Some homes along the canals and coastal towns vanished in storm surge.

Cooper's Town had fared better than Treasure Cay, which fared better than Marsh Harbour.

Stubbs, who from Nassau had seen images on social media of wreckage on Great Abaco, thought there was nothing left of the entire island chain where her mother lives.

"Before I heard my mother was safe, I was over there thinking the entire island was ravaged," Stubbs said. "But that's just not the case."

By the time Stubbs got to Cooper's Town, she learned her mother had flown to Nassau to find her.

"Such is life," she said. "Life without cell phones."

The death toll had risen to 43 by Saturday, though Bahamian officials suggested it would climb as they assessed the damage.

Relatives in Florida and throughout the Caribbean had posted desperate pleas on social media for rescue workers and volunteers to search for their loved ones on Great Abaco. A website, Dorianpeoplesearch.com, lists about 5,000 names of Bahamians still unaccounted for.

McIntosh, the pastor, wondered aloud whether his name was on that list. He hadn't heard from his son, Clayton McIntosh Jr., who lives in Freeport.

"All I want right now is for someone to walk over here, wave and say, 'Hi, I was in Freeport and I saw your son today.'"

He has no plans to leave Cooper's Town, however. McIntosh helped local officials bring water and supplies to the shelter and get generators set up in damaged homes.

While some were desperate to flee, others refused to leave.

Dozens in Cooper's Town, who sheltered in the church during the storm, had returned to their homes by Saturday.

They watched others make the trek to Treasure Cay's battered airstrip and instead made plans to repair their homes.

McIntosh's home had roof damage and a few broken windows, but, he said, it was nothing compared with the debris in images from Marsh Harbour.

"If we leave, who will stay and rebuild?" he said. "We kind of look at this as a blessing in disguise. Something good with come of it. We, Bahamians, will be stronger because of this."

Palm Beach Post staff writer Lulu Ramadan is reporting from the Bahamas.

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@luluramadan

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