Page 12 - AT

A12 WORLD NEWS
Friday 6 September 2019
'Like zombies': Hurricane's victims face heartbreak and loss

right knee, along with in-
fected wounds in her calf
from shards of glass from a
blown-out window.
Before she was rescued
Wednesday, Cottis had
spent days sitting in her
wheelchair and the nights
sleeping in a metal lawn
lounger surrounded by wet
belongings and sewage
after the septic tank over-
flowed with floodwaters.
Among those who looked
for anything salvageable
at The Mudd was Ilphody
Norvilus, a 37-year-old
painter. He clutched a big
white plastic bucket as he
picked up rubber sandals,
white plastic plates and a
big purse.
"I lost everything," he said. "I
don't know what I'm going
to do. I don't have a house
to live in."
A car lays among debris from homes flattened by Hurricane Dorian in an area called "The Mud" at Marsh Harbour in Great Abaco Americans who found
Island, Bahamas on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019. flights back to the U.S.
Associated Press were relieved to get off
By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN best thing we can do." fab offices to set up logis- main door between a small the islands. The couple had
Associated Press Ked was one of thousands tics hubs for helping the es- group of hurricane victims been staying in an apart-
ABACO, Bahamas (AP) — of desperate people seek- timated 76,000 people who and Bahamas marines. ment near a church in
Lugging empty suitcases, ing help in Dorian's after- will need food and other Abaco and Grand Baha- Man-O-War Cay. When the
plastic buckets and back- math. With winds of 185 relief. ma islands are known for apartment started to give
packs, dazed survivors of mph (295 kph), the hurri- In Grand Bahama, a Roy- their marinas, golf courses way, they ran next door to
Hurricane Dorian made cane obliterated houses on al Caribbean cruise ship and all-inclusive resorts and the church's fellowship hall
their way back to the shan- the Bahamas' Abaco and dropped off 10,000 meals, are home to many fisher- and stayed until the eye
tytown where they used to Grand Bahama islands, 10,000 bottles of water and men, laborers and hotel of the storm arrived, when
live, hoping to gather up home to some 70,000 peo- more than 180 genera- workers. they fled to a nearby con-
some of their soggy be- ple. The official death toll tors, as well as diapers and Samson Kersint, a 38-year- crete home.
longings. from the government stood flashlights. old who worked in a lum- As soon as they got there,
The community was known at 20 and was certain to Crews in Grand Bahama beryard and has been in the storm's fury returned
as The Mudd — or "Da climb. worked to reopen the the Bahamas since 1998, and the roof began lifting
Mudd," as it's often pro- Search-and-rescue op- airport and used heavy was among those who lost off. "We moved into their
nounced — and it was built erations and an interna- equipment to pick up their homes in the dirt-path bathroom, about 10 of us,"
by thousands of Haitian mi- tional humanitarian effort branches and palm fronds. shantytown. Buddy Mullins said Thursday
grants over decades. It was to help the victims picked Lines formed outside gas "We walking like zombies," after returning to Fort Lau-
razed in a matter of hours up speed, with emergency stations and grocery stores. he said as he walked derdale. "I prayed two solid
by Dorian, which reduced officials fanning out across "People will be out of jobs around The Mudd with a hours while those walls and
it to piles of splintered ply- the stricken areas and for months," 67-year-old backpack. "We ain't find things shook."
wood and two-by-fours 4 tracking down people who wood carver Gordon Higgs no one to talk to us. Ain't no When Maya Long stepped
and 5 feet deep, spread were missing or in distress. lamented. "They'll be home- water, no light." off the plane with her four
over an area equal to sev- Crews began clearing less, no food. Nothing. The The dead included the children, she immediately
eral football fields. streets and setting up distri- Bahamas has become like sister-in-law of Benatace started to cry, "knowing fi-
A helicopter buzzed over- bution centers for food and a Third World country." Pierre-Louis, 57, who col- nally that we are all alive,
head Thursday as people water. Total property losses, not in- lects and sells scrap met- just knowing that we're
picked through the de- "That is moving extremely cluding infrastructure and al. He said she died in The safe."
bris, avoiding a body that well," said National Security autos, could reach $7 bil- Mudd after she got hit by The family lives on a sail-
lay tangled underneath a Minister Marvin Dames. "This lion, the firm Karen Clark & plywood as she tried to es- boat and had just finished
tree branch next to twist- is not our first time around Co. estimated. cape the storm. delivering school supplies
ed sheets of corrugated the track." On Thursday, medical of- "They gone, but we can't to needy children in Abaco
metal, its hands stretched A British Royal Navy ship ficials moved hundreds of do nothing," he said, add- when they heard about
toward the sky. It was one docked in the Abaco is- people left homeless by the ing that Bahamian immi- the hurricane. They rode
of at least nine bodies that lands distributed supplies storm out of the main hos- gration officials had visited out the storm at a friend's
people said they had seen to hurricane survivors. The pital in Abaco to shelters in The Mudd ahead of Dorian home until the roof blew off
in the area. United Nations announced schools and other govern- and told people to go to and then sought shelter at
"Ain't nobody come to get the purchase of eight tons ment buildings. Some were shelters. a nearby school.
them," said Cardot Ked, a of ready-to-eat meals and angry at being asked to Elsewhere across the Baha- The sailboat sustained seri-
43-year-old carpenter from said it will provide satellite leave, or at not being al- mas, the injured included ous damage, including a
Haiti who has lived 25 years communications equip- lowed to freely enter to visit 89-year-old Sylvia Cottis, lost mast. Her husband is still
in Abaco. "If we could get ment and airlift storage hurt relatives, and a shout- who uses a wheelchair. in the Bahamas assessing
to the next island, that's the units, generators and pre- ing match erupted at the She had a gash on her the damage.q