The Tribune

WHILE the government scrambled to discover the extent of the damage from Hurricane Joaquin, practical Bahamians immediately rose to the occasion and took matters into their own hands.

By the time that Prime Minister Christie had attended two morning funerals and eventually assembled a group together for an aerial survey on Saturday, Bahamians were already collecting supplies and arranging transportation to get urgent relief to the hard-hit islands.

From the farthest islands, The Tribune received reports from residents that Hurricane Joaquin was upon them before they were even informed that it was on the way. Joaquin, like Andrew before it, had fooled everyone. It was there, but apparently so insignificant that it had attracted little attention, until suddenly it started to move, pick up speed and travel up the Bahama chain. In the southern islands, residents were battling a storm before announcers could get to the airways to inform them that it was on its way and advise them to seek shelter. According to sources within NEMA all communication with the southern islands was cut off due to weather, limiting the agency’s advisory capabilities into the afternoon.

However, at a press conference Thursday, Prime Minister Christie denied this. He said that through satellite technology, a system in which government had invested more than $60m, he and senior members of the Royal Bahamas Police Force were able to “instantaneously” communicate with those islands.

However, as voices got through complaining that hurricane shelters were not open and no one had even taken them through a hurricane drill, Mr Christie admitted that there is “still a challenge of preparedness”.

“And whether or not people are fair in their commentary or accurate, you’ve heard talk coming from islands of not having been prepared, being caught by surprise,” he said.

“The living experience of events to do with nature continues to be teachable moments in the life of a country,” he added.

In a period of 143 years (1871 to 2014), The Bahamas has been hit about 60 times by a powerful hurricane. The longest gap between storms was ten years (1908 to 1919). It is estimated that our area gets a brush or hit every 2.38 years.

According to these statistics, the Bahamas should have expected to have been affected “before the end of 2015”. Hurricane Sandy was the last to pass by on October 25, 2012, with 90mph winds.

We had all become complacent. When we first joined The Tribune, it was always known that the Hurricane season ended on September 18 — August and September being the worst months of the year for storms. Today the closing of the hurricane season is November 30. Here we were, the summer almost over, August and September behind us, but not a whisper of a storm. Obviously with all the talk that this was an El Niño year, a hurricane was the last thing on a Bahamian’s mind. NEMA had gone through its usual paces of publishing the location of hurricane shelters, the newspapers had published their annual Hurricane editions, but the season was almost over and there were no warnings — everyone felt safe – until we were hit with the “teaching moment”.

August 22, 1992, was also a “teaching moment”, which demonstrates the difference between two prime ministers — Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham (1992-2002; 2007-2012) and Prime Minister Christie.

Mr Ingraham’s FNM had defeated the Pindling government at the polls on August 19, 1992. Mr Ingraham was not sworn in at Government House as prime minister until August 21. On August 22 Hurricane Andrew was announced. The following day it had hit Eleuthera as a category 5 hurricane with winds of 160mph, the next day it was passing through the southern Berry Islands.

Hardly 24 hours as prime minister Mr Ingraham learned of Hurricane Andrew and called Foreign Affairs, only to discover that international agencies had been calling in urgently to find out if the Bahamas needed help from the hurricane that was then bearing down upon it. As nothing seemed amiss, the foreign agencies had been told that no help was needed, that the storm had by-passed Nassau. At the time no one in Nassau knew that Andrew was tearing Eleuthera to streds – Spanish Wells had been devastated.

Mr Ingraham summoned Ms Teresa Butler and the late Mrs Cathy Benjamin from Foreign Affairs to the Cabinet Office. He immediately took charge of operations — all the agencies that had offered help were contacted and told that their urgent help was desperately needed, and would immediately be appreciated. Calls offering help were coming “from all over the place”. They were now being coordinated from the Cabinet office under the new prime minister’s watchful eye.

The next day, Prime Minister Ingraham on his second day in office had organised a small aircraft to take him and his assistants to assess the damage in the various settlements. He organised all the assistance that he could get as quickly as possible.

He then organised what eventually became NEMA.

Beginning with Hurricane Andrew, Mr Ingraham made it the rule to keep the House fully apprised of damage from natural disasters and give a full accounting of government’s response.

After the experience with Hurricane Andrew, whenever The Bahamas was threatened by a tropical storm or hurricane, Mr Ingraham always met with NEMA in advance and always issued personal advisories to the public urging that hurricane preparations be taken as recommended by the Met Office and NEMA. He urged residents in low lying areas to move to the safety of official hurricane shelters ahead of the storm.

It would be good if our present prime minister could add these suggestions to his learning experience.

Tomorrow, the Tribune Media Group will launch a programme broadcasting live over stations 100JAMZ, Kissfm, Y98fm and Joyfm from various locations in Nassau to raise funds for S.O.S - Save our South - Hurricane Joaquin Relief 2015. It is hoped to raise $500,000 to help our fellow citizens who are now in distress.