Dorian

One doesn't get the magnitude of Dorian, the hurricane, where we are on Grand Bahama Island.  Yes, everyone's house was flooded and roofs were ripped off.  I hoped to help someone gut their house or hang some sheetrock. But yesterday I rode out to East End right next to Abaco with 3 young people who have a 501c3 doing relief work here called Hope Fleet.  They work with a local church.

The devastation was mind-boggling.

Recovery efforts now, after 6 months, are still focused on cleaning up the mess and leveling homes.  The busiest reconstruction sites were at 2 Baptist chuches with crews that were obviously American.  After some musing I realized that rebuilding a community had to start with restoring the gathering places.  Down here that's a church.

We stopped at the ferry dock connecting Abaco to GBI and talked to some folks. 

One woman had opened a little store/bar in the trunk of her car.  Potato chips and rum.

Most of the population of Abaco has been absorbed into the other islands by family or churches.  Those that are hanging on do not want to go on social services.  They have two big needs.  The first is roofing materials.  The second is to get their livelihood back which is fishing.  They need small boats/runabouts and outboards.

That's when I realized that we can be so much more helpful by raising money to get those fishermen back to work.  So I am developing a plan to raise money to buy one or two boats with motors.  In Maye will appeal to the Lake Champlain boating community and work through Hope Fleet.  Much better than hanging sheet rock, although that would make me feel good.

Seems that Grand Bahama houses were built with concrete while Marsh Harbor and Hope Town were mostly wood structures.

So life goes on here.  Seawater pump hasn't arrived and that's not surprising.  Still lots of work to do on the boat.  Kathleen got sick of this old tub and decided to buy a new one.