Imagine having a Cat 5 hurricane stall over your island for 28 hours.  Then, imagine having hurricane force winds pound you for up to 42 hours.  That’s what happened to the Bahamas.

The hurricane death toll is rising in the Bahamas, in what its leader calls “this hour of darkness”.

Search and rescue teams are still trying to reach some Bahamian communities isolated by floodwaters and debris after Hurricane Dorian struck the northern part of the archipelago a week ago. At least 43 people died.

Several hundred people, many of them Haitian immigrants, waited at Abaco island’s Marsh Harbour in hopes of leaving the disaster zone on vessels arriving with aid. Bahamian security forces were organising evacuations on a landing craft. Other boats, including yachts and other private craft, were also helping to evacuate people.

Avery Parotti, a 19-year-old bartender, and partner Stephen Chidles, a 26-year-old gas station attendant, had been waiting at the port since 1am. During the hurricane, waves lifted a yacht that smashed against a cement wall, which in turn collapsed on their home and destroyed it.

Source: UN, US Coast Guard and others aid stricken Bahamas – NZ Herald