The powerful Hurricane Joaquin moved away from The Bahamas as it was downgraded last night, but not without leaving a path of destruction in its wake. Packing winds up to 140 miles per hour at its strongest point so far, the system churned over several islands in the central and southern Bahamas for most of yesterday as the dangerous category four storm toppled power lines and caused widespread structural damage to homes, businesses and docks. There were also reports of major flooding across several islands.

Long Island, San Salvador, Samana Cay, Crooked Island, Acklins, Great Exuma and Rum Cay experienced the worst of the storm. However, several other areas including Cat Island and North Eleuthera were also adversely impacted. Though the full report from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) won’t likely come in until today or tomorrow the damage is expected to be extensive.

National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) officials said yesterday they lost contact with Long Island and Crooked Island. MICAL MP V. Alfred Gray said he had also been unable to contact anyone in Crooked Island as residents were without electricity or cell service. However, he said if Crooked Island experienced similar conditions as Acklins, the scenario would be dire.

“I spoke to the administrator in Acklins and he found that some seven or eight houses in Acklins were totally destroyed between Snug Corner and Mason Bay,” Gray said. “Also, all houses along the coastline were waterlogged. In other words, water entered all of the homes on the coastline.”

Gray said the island’s administrator, Harvey Roberts, was unable to get to several settlements, as the roads were impassable due to downed power lines and other debris. Several homes were also said to be damaged or destroyed in Rum Cay. Captain Ben Martin said the city dock and the two grocery stores were also damaged on Rum Cay.

“We have a lot of utilities poles that are down,” he said. “We have a lot of flooding. The church, which was used as a shelter, got flooded and about 11 houses are completely underwater.”

NEMA said the 32 people who sought shelter at St. Christopher’s Anglican Church were relocated to the island’s clinic. The church also sustained structural damage. Martin said the island was also without power. BEC officials in the Family Islands reported island wide outages remaining in Inagua, Mayaguana, Crooked Island, and Long Island as a result of deteriorating weather conditions.

“BEC teams also report outages in some parts of Exuma and Cat Island due to the impact of Hurricane Joaquin,” said a BEC statement. “Limited communication with some of the impacted islands and poor weather conditions have prevented any further assessment of damage in those communities. BEC advises that once the all clear is given, a comprehensive assessment of the damage will be completed. This will be followed by repairs and eventual restoration.”

San Salvador resident Paul Turnquest said the damage on that island is extensive.

“There will be quite a bit of structural damage to the homes here in San Salvador because of the high winds and the thing about it is there is a lot of rain as well,” Turnquest said.

According to NEMA, winds on San Salvador exceeded 130 mph.

“This is my 26th year [living here],” he said. “I have never seen this before.... I weathered Hurricane Floyd and more recently Hurricane Francis and this is the worst one we’ve ever seen.”

Forecasters said the system, which weakened to a category three storm as it moved away from the country last night, would be completely out of Bahamian territory by late Saturday morning.

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