Three years ago, real estate visionary Mario Carey called for the creation of a regional disaster relief and recovery centre that would fly into action the second a storm was predicted. The only problem – where to locate it.

Now, he says, he knows – a 62-acre site that includes every possible ingredient, existing warehouses, sprawling acreage and the most essential ingredient of all – vast waterfront to deploy recovery and relief vessels. The site is the former Bacardi rum distillery and operations centre on the south central side of New Providence.

“It’s no longer a matter of if, but when the next natural disaster will strike,” says Carey. “We cannot afford to run from what the experts tell us or hide from our new reality. Extreme weather conditions are becoming more frequent, the damage they leave in their wake more costly, and the insurance industry, which already accounts for about 10% of the national economy in the United States will one day not be able to keep up.”

That means, he says, it will be up to those with a need to find a means to clean up, rescue, recover and rebuild. And while the rebuilding will take time, immediate needs for survival cannot wait until sufficient lumber, labour and supplies arrive in hard-hit areas.

“All the data dating back to when storm records started to be kept shows that of all the islands in The Bahamas, New Providence is the best protected and least likely to be devastated by a hurricane,” Carey explained. “And on New Providence you cannot find another property that would be better suited to serve in a regional capacity for relief and recovery than the Bacardi plant.”

The plant, which ceased operations in 2009, has remained virtually untouched, a gem, says Carey, for a business with a social conscience. It was listed for sale with Better Homes & Gardens MCR Group, the company Carey founded, this month for $37 million.

“It is five minutes from the airport, has more than 1,200 linear feet of waterfrontage, over 400,000 square feet of interior square footage with well-built warehouses, has all the water, water-making and ice production capacity that you could ever need. It has space for a helipad, has its own fuel station and an existing 6-storey tower that can be converted into a command centre.”

Carey is already working with international and local experts, mapping technology requirements to create a plan of action immediately acting on hurricane predictions. He is bringing together experts in technology, aviation, global recovery and will involve local NGOs as well as NEMA, Bahamas Red Cross, and other emergency response units as the informal process becomes a formal steering committee.

“The vision is already there. The land, the facilities, the waterfrontage could not be more perfect from which to operate a relief and recovery centre capable of moving into action the minute conditions for a natural disaster are identified,” said Carey. Warehouse buildings, he said, would become the main campus for storage of tents, mattresses, vehicles and trucks, foodstuffs, medical supplies. Monitoring will ensure that food, medical or personal supplies with a best by date be distributed to local NGOs prior to expiration to avoid wastage and allow space for re-supplying.

“The site has good elevation and drainage. It has never flooded. With all the paved roads running throughout, there is space for excavation equipment, room to build dockage for barges to move that equipment as a need arises. There are massive well-built aluminum tanks for fuel storage. It is the only industrial zoned property on the south side that also has 22 acres on the water ideal for a shipyard and marina, all of which could feed into the relief and recovery operations.

Carey, who in recent years has taken his super sales background into brokerage with a cause, envisions an operations command centre that is created either through a joint venture or private enterprise with agreements in place between those who lease space and store supplies and those who manage the facility. No politics, no cost to government, he says.

“The facility would operate as a massive storage arena for equipment and supplies and be ready to deploy almost instantly, but if there is an urgency in Puerto Rico, for instance, and what Puerto Rico has stored is insufficient for the need, there would be a bilateral contract that would allow an executive disaster relief committee to manage lending supplies at a cost from another partner with a replenishment schedule so everything has a fixed asset backed by a flexibility guarantee,” he said.

Government emergency arms would lease space for storage of their supplies and would have access to other equipment, drones, planes, helicopters, barges as needed under contractual terms.

Carey recently toured the site with a naval architect.

“After one tour around said he could not imagine a more perfect location for the vision of being able to help others in the worst of times with the best of solutions,” he said. He calculates the cost of creating the full-blown facility at about $80 to $90 million, a figure he believes as few as 10 billionaires could underwrite and help save untold thousands from the delayed aftermath of devastation when months or years can pass without full recovery. Financial capability already resides within The Bahamas, he says. “We have to demonstrate that the funds they invest will help to save lives, perhaps thousands of lives.”

Carey also believes it is a natural investment to be handled partly or wholly in crypto, tokenizing the handling for swift exchange transfers when an emergency occurs.

“Once this is in place, The Bahamas can service low-lying vulnerable states like Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and the Gulf Coast, including Florida in addition to the Caribbean, Central and parts of South America,” Carey said. “It started as a vision. Now it has a location. Build it because we know the storms will come.”

PRIME Minister Philip "Brave" Davis met with Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness and a small delegation during a courtesy call at the Office of the Prime Minister on West Bay Street yesterday.

BAHAMAS Union of Teachers president Belinda Wilson has said the thousands of teachers she represents have reached a "breaking point" after seeing no results on multiple issues brought to the attention of officials since September 2021.

The issues, she said, are well documented in numerous letters to the Department of Education since then.

As students returned to school for in-person classes under a hybrid instruction model this week, issues — particularly at T A Thompson — came to light. At that school, the majority of teachers staged a sit in due to inadequate conditions.

In an appearance on Beyond the Headlines with Shenique Miller on Wednesday night, the BUT president also addressed the view that teachers did not support her push for industrial action earlier this week, saying more than 1,200 took part in some form of industrial action.

Mrs Wilson said: “The decision that we need to do some action was not Belinda Wilson’s decision, but it was the decision of 1,200 members on Thursday, January 20 and another 873 members on Friday, Jan 21.”

This week, Education Minister Glenys Hanna Martin said only 466 teachers did not report to work for personal reasons.

Mrs Wilson said she has often found herself annoyed at the ministry’s failure to address grievances.

“You know what I note and what I am very annoyed about? I believe that a lot of the meetings are to say that we met with the union,” she said. “Not really to get true results because we had a meeting with the minister yesterday (Tuesday). We were able to outline 10 of probably 30 or 40 concerns and she said okay. She wrote them down and she said she will get back to me.

“However, these are not things that I just woke up yesterday to say I have letters that I’ve written from September, October, November (and) December of 2021, January—I’m writing all the time.

“We even did a document that we presented to education and then the other thing that I want persons to think about is the persons that work in the ministry and the Department of Education, they’ve not changed so the documentation and the information and the recommendations that we’ve given, it’s lodged into the Department of Education.

“So, you have a new minister that comes then you should be able to say whichever topic it is that the minister is discussing with you internally, you should be able to say ‘hold on minister this is our documents. However, we have received this document from the Bahamas Union of Teachers’.”

She continued: “And let me tell them something too, when you see me don’t think ‘oh that’s Belinda.’ There are 3,000 behind me and let me also set the record straight for this too: they noted that we only have 466 persons who did not go to schools. So, that is their narrative.

“We have the documentation and we have the numbers and we had more than 1,200 of our members throughout The Commonwealth of The Bahamas who did some form of industrial action.”

Her comments came the same day teachers at T A Thompson voiced frustrations that their main education block was plagued with serious issues.

The matter forced them to work from another block on the school campus. However, the structure only had one working bathroom to service 200 students, some of the classrooms do not have proper ventilation and some teachers were unable to easily access all of its three floors due to mobility issues.

Therefore, the school has reverted to a virtual platform until the issues can be resolved.

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