Beautiful Islands of The Bahamas, Paradise on Earth
~ Wishing the best assistance, care and recovery from this historic storm to all in The Bahamas.
- (The Guardian, Sept. 3, 19.) US officials and counterparts around the world sent out an urgent call for help for the Bahamas after the northernmost islands in the archipelago were pulverized by Hurricane Dorian.
Thousands of residents of Grand Bahama and Abaco islands are without shelter, stranded by flooding and are likely to suffer shortages of food, water and medicine that will worsen without quick action by the international community, according to coordinated messages from the United Nations, the US state department, the US embassy in Nassau and local officials. “We are in the midst of a historic tragedy,” said the Bahamian prime minister, Hubert Minnis. “The devastation is unprecedented and extensive.”
The dimensions of the humanitarian disaster began to emerge after the slow-moving storm, which took about 36 hours to cross the five-mile-wide Grand Bahama, finally left the country on Tuesday afternoon. Minnis announced late in the evening that the death toll had risen to seven, with more deaths expected, and predicted that rebuilding would require “a massive, coordinated effort”. “We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country’s history,” Minnis told a news conference. “No effort or resources will be held back.”..More, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/03/hurricane-dorian-us-un-bahamas
THE BAHAMAS (Wiki): known officially as the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, is a country within the Lucayan Archipelago, in the Caribbean. The archipelagic state consists of more than 700 islands, cays, and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida, and east of the Florida Keys. The capital is Nassau on the island of New Providence. The designation of "the Bahamas" can refer either to the country or to the larger island chain that it shares with the Turks and Caicos Islands. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes the Bahamas territory as encompassing 470,000 km2 (180,000 sq mi) of ocean space.
The Bahamas were inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taíno people, for many centuries. Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making his first landfall in the 'New World' in 1492. Although the Spanish never colonised the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery on Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 until 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.
The Bahamas became a British crown colony in 1718, when the British clamped down on piracy. After the American Revolutionary War, the Crown resettled thousands of American Loyalists in the Bahamas; they took their slaves with them and established plantations on land grants. African slaves and their descendants constituted the majority of the population from this period on. The slave trade was abolished by the British in 1807; slavery in the Bahamas was abolished in 1834.
Subsequently, the Bahamas became a haven for freed African slaves. Africans liberated from illegal slave ships were resettled on the islands by The Royal Navy, while some North American slaves and Seminoles escaped to the Bahamas from Florida. Bahamians were even known to recognize the freedom of slaves carried by the ships of other nations which reached the Bahamas. Today Afro-Bahamians make up 90% of the population of 332,600.
The Bahamas became an independent Commonwealth realm in 1973 with Elizabeth II as its queen. In terms of gross domestic product per capita, the Bahamas is one of the richest countries in the Americas (following the United States and Canada), with an economy based on tourism and offshore finance...More, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bahamas
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of Abaco Island received the worst, it looks devastating from the pix. The Nassau area was spared however. These storms are becoming worse and worse and we're in for much more according to the experts.
My first trip to the islands was in college. We flew to a small cay on Eleuthera Island, toured the heavenly waters & beaches, saw our first 'conch' & visited the charming capital city of Nassau. Drove by imposing govt. house, the driver also pointed out Sidney Poitier's Home which was fun. A beautiful, peaceful and diverse area with wonderful people.
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**(CNN, Sept, 3, 19)..Dorian is moving north after battering the Bahamas. Miles of debris from houses smashed apart by the hurricane stretched Tuesday across the landscape of the Bahamas' Great Abaco Island as the deadly storm left behind a paradise obliterated. The storm's death toll, which officials fear will rise sharply, stands at seven people, according to Prime Minister Hubert Minnis.
On Great Abaco, high winds remained but the rain had subsided Tuesday as residents emerged to gasp at the incredible devastation. Huge piles of rubble were what remained of businesses and homes wrecked by the strongest storm to hit the islands, aerial video showed.
.. The Prime Minister told reporters after returning from an aerial tour of Great Abaco that he estimated there was damage to 60% of the homes there. According to a 2010 census, 17,224 people lived on the Abacos and there were about 5,200 occupied houses, apartments and townhomes with an additional 2,916 vacant units. "We have been attacked by a vicious, devastating storm (from which there was no defense)," Minnis told CNN. Minnis said additional police and security forces will be sent to the Abacos on Wednesday morning to prevent violence or looting.
Fortunately, New Providence Island and the capital of Nassau, which generate much of the Bahamas tourist revenue, had not been touched, the Prime Minister said...
More, https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/03/us/hurricane-dorian-tuesday-wxc/index.html
- Aerial view of the devastation caused by Hurricane Dorian on Great Abaco Island, Bahamas, Sept. 2019.