The Tribune

IT IS said that in every cloud there is a silver lining. The only silver that we can find in the cloud that has hovered over these islands since Thursday is the spirit of the Bahamian people. In the face of this crisis, Bahamians have discovered that they are indeed their brother’s keeper — race, religion, political affiliations, and social standing were forgotten. In the face of disaster, they pulled together as one people to help their fellow citizens who were left devastated after passage of the cruelest hurricane in recent memory.

Joaquin, with a name difficult to pronounce (waa-keen), will never be forgotten for the destruction it has left in its path as it lingered over these islands as though loathe to leave.

In Ed Fields’ radio broadcast yesterday over 100Jamz, Kissfm, Joy and Y, Tall Pines MP Leslie Miller, one of a group of citizens organising supply missions to the devastated islands, remarked on how it was always the foreigner who was first to the rescue. This time, he noted, Bahamians had also joined them in stretching out a helping hand.

In a matter of days, five 40ft containers with about $40,000 worth of supplies were shipped to the southern Bahamas. Transportation is still is being arranged for the delivery of generators, water, baby food, cleaning supplies, chlorine and bleach, clothing, dry goods, paper towels, animal food, even bicycles for transportation — everything has been thought of for a people who today have nothing.

On August 4th, a US hurricane forecast reported that a “quiet hurricane season is still expected. All the forecasts are in, and with the heart of the Atlantic hurricane season approaching, a quiet year still looks likely.

“The final ‘pre-season’ forecast from top experts at Colorado State University, released Tuesday, again calls for a ‘well below-average hurricane season for the Atlantic basin in 2015,’ researchers said”.

Prime Minister Christie has talked of this unexpected storm as a “teaching moment”. What we have learned from this is that the Atlantic hurricane season is from June 1 to November 30. Despite what the forecasters say, a prudent people will be prepared during that period for the unexpected. As Hurricane Joaquin has taught us, nature is unpredictable and should never be taken for granted

Admitting that Acklins — like the other hard-hit islands in the south — did not have sufficient warning from government agencies to prepare for the fierce storm, MICAL MP Alfred Gray told reporters that what was not done in advance of Hurricane Joaquin would get done “next time”.

Let’s hope that there will not be a next time, but what Bahamians should have learned from this is that they cannot depend on their government — they must rely on each other and their common sense. They should keep the Boys Scout motto close at hand in all things, especially during hurricanes: “Be prepared.”

A Bahamian found “the lack of attention to preparedness by local communities astounding”. He pointed out that there were Local Government bodies on every Family Island. “All Family Islands also have Hurricane Preparedness Committees (or at least are supposed to have them). Persons on the Family Islands should not require someone in Nassau to tell them annually how to prepare for a storm – including getting out of low-lying areas prone to flooding when a monster storm is in the area with the potential of impact.

“There appears to have been a critical failure on the part of local government officials - and these are not only civil servants, in responding to alerts for the storm,” he said.

For example, he continued, “the fact that Hurricane Shelters were reportedly not opened in Acklins is alarming. Suggestions that some satellite phones were not charged are truly amazing.

“Surely as soon as June 1st comes around annually, one would expect that all hurricane-related matters are brought up to speed and kept so for the duration of the season. The spectacle of the PM and the Commissioner of Police talking communications capability on television last week Thursday afternoon was dismaying. Surely this was the time for both these gentlemen to remind Bahamians of the seriousness of tropical storm systems and to admonish them to take precautions – erring on the side of caution.

“When a tropical storm or hurricane is as close to us as was Joaquin last week Monday, all preparations ought to have been kicked into high gear regardless to whether we expected the storm to impact us directly or not,” he continued. “Storms are always unpredictable. Emergency and Disaster Relief have to be ready even when nothing happens and even when nothing happens repeatedly. Could it be that because everyone got ready for Erica, which did not come, that everyone stood down?”

MP Gray pointed out that there was no communication with Salina Point, Acklins for a least four days because all lines were down. He said that the only means of communication would be by radio.

However, even this will not be possible in the future if a recent proposal by URCA — up for consideration — goes through. This recommendation would reduce the transmission power to such an extent that it would leave radio stations with such a limited range that they would be useless as a means of communication in what these islands have just experienced.

Let’s take for example, Long Island, 80 miles long by four miles wide, San Salvador, 13 miles long by five miles wide, Acklins and Crooked Island, 92 square miles — the power of the transmitters proposed by URCA would transmit for a distance of not more than three miles and would be unable to penetrate buildings.

URCA’s proposal is a hairbrained scheme at the best of times, but with the telecommunications devastation exposed by Joaquin in our southern islands, we suggest that URCA think again. In such a situation radios are essential, and power to transmit is the name of the game.