The Tribune

By JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

jrussell@tribunemedia.net

BAHAMIANS of all backgrounds are scrambling for relief from the brutal heat this summer, but for some of the country’s poorest residents, managing the conditions is an existential challenge.

“The heat is affecting not just the poor but the middle class,” said Bishop Walter Hanchell, President of Great Commission Ministries. “If you can’t afford a standby generator or AC, then man, all you gonna do is suffer, and that’s all we’ve been going through. If it’s affecting the middle class, you could imagine what the poor is going through in those hot houses, those small houses with no ventilation.”

Companies that provide air conditioning services for homes and cars have reported an unprecedented surge in sales and customer interest recently. On social media, reports of ice and water shortages linked to cooling-down efforts have become daily occurrences.

The news doesn’t get better: The Bahamas Department of Meteorology issued a heat advisory yesterday, urging residents nationwide to stay hydrated and limit outdoor activities during peak afternoon hours because the heat index is expected to be near 110°F in the coming days.

 As most residents find ways to cope, experts note that some, including those experiencing homelessness and older people, are especially vulnerable.

 Winston Paul, 27, a street vendor who lives off Mackey Street and sells guineps to the passerby, said he saw two people faint from what appeared to be heat-related exhaustion.

 After buying breakfast at Potter’s Cay dock last week, he said he encountered his friend, Ashton, on the ground being fanned by his girlfriend before paramedics arrived.

 Later that week, he saw a homeless man on Mackey Street collapse under the sweltering sun.

 “This was the first time I ever saw this gentlemen in this kind of position,” he told The Tribune while helping a vendor who said her water and Gatorade sales have soared with the temperatures –– her one silver lining this summer.

 “In this sun, you could really catch a heat stroke,” Mr Paul said. “I heard so much elderly people say this is not the temperature they knew growing up as a child and this sun is not the sun that they know growing up. If they could say that from their time and they feeling it now, this sun really beating down on everybody.”

 Mr Paul, who sometimes goes to the Salvation Army for clothes, said the heat has made him more weary and frustrated than usual. When he stops selling fruits and goes home, no AC awaits him, just more unpleasant conditions.

 Meanwhile, Kevin, a homeless man who begs for money at the intersection of Shirley and Mackey Streets, said the heat, though uncomfortable, hardly stands out amid his daily fight for basic necessities.

 “I’m being oppressed,” he said.  “I don’t hide; I stay outside, always feeling the discomfort.”

 Outside Great Commission Ministries, people in need gathered for food around noon.

 Mudline Rolle, 69, said she has no electricity at home. She said travelling in this weather to visit people and the commission as she tends to do is hard.

 “Boy, let me tell you something, when I go home, the windows does be open, and I does sleep just like that,” she said.

 An 80-year-old man who visited the commission, meanwhile, suggested he regretted not buying an AC unit when he had the chance because he had feared it would “run up my bill too high”.

 “Bahamians consider themselves to be resilient and tolerant,” former Health Minister Dr Duane Sands said yesterday.

 “Having grown up in the tropics and having to endure hot summer days, it is easy to believe that the current heat surge is simply more of the same.

 “It isn’t! As temperatures soar, some of us may simply not be able to sweat enough to lose body heat especially as the humidity rises.

 “As our bodies heat beyond 102 degrees, the internal controls become less effective, especially if we are underhydrated.

 “Quickly, internal temperatures can climb to dangerous levels, causing confusion and fatigue. Other organs begin to malfunction, and the ordinary signals become less reliable.”

 “At this point, the phase of heat exhaustion if not recognized and corrected can progress to deadly heat stroke.”

 “Pay attention to the elderly and very young who are less able to regulate internal body temperatures in these extreme conditions.”

 On Monday, the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned that the record high temperatures around the earth last week are a taste of things to come as climate change impacts the planet.