MATHEW TOWN, Inagua - The people of Inagua appeared in good spirits yesterday, despite the fact that many of the island's buildings were severely damaged by Hurricane Ike, and there was no electricity and - up to press time - running water on the island.
Now residents are being forced to consider a future without its main employer to help them through.
On Tuesday, the condition of the airport at Mathew Town was evidence enough that a major disaster had recently occurred. The United States Coast Guard hangar at the airport was nearly torn in half and rendered completely useless, said U.S. Coast Guard Commander David Billburg yesterday.
Billburg said 15 Coast Guard personnel, two Drug Enforcement agents and four other law enforcement officers hunkered down in their barracks during Hurricane Ike as it tore through Mathew Town on Sunday. Billburg said the barracks were surprisingly unscathed by the tropical cyclone.
However, the Royal Bahamas Defence Force barracks was not as fortunate. On Tuesday, the doors and the roofs of several buildings were missing, and the buildings were completely uninhabitable.
The main road was lined with broken utility poles and destroyed transformers. Piles of shingles from houses and various debriswere made unidentifiable due to the extent of damage caused by Ike's up to 160 miles per hour wind gusts.
The Bahamas Telecommunications Company building on the island was barely recognizable through a mass of twisted steel and a fallen massive satellite dish, courtesy of the category four storm.
There was no regular phone service on the island yesterday. But the TDMA and GSM services worked exceptionally well.
The island's government complex, which housed several government agencies, was devastated by the storm, its roof detached and its furniture nowhere to be found.
The all-age school on Inagua was in similar shape. The roof of the primary school was severely damaged and the furniture was destroyed. The primary school, however, did much better than the high school. Its roof was about 80 percent destroyed by the storm, which led to three classrooms being wiped out due to the rain that came in after the roof disappeared, said Ministry of Education District Superintendent Joel Lewis.
He also told journalists yesterday that it would probably take about two weeks for officials to get the school back to normal.
The damage was pretty much uniform across the island yesterday, with some houses displaying worse damage than others, but few were left standing unscathed.
Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham arrived on the island around 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, accompanied by officials from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and various government ministers. At the airport, dozens of residents greeted the PM, who was also accompanied by Leader of the Official Opposition Progressive Liberal Party Perry Christie.
"We've come to have a look," Ingraham said while taking a tour of the Morton Bahamas Limited salt plant, which was extensively damaged. "We have technical people here on the ground who are going to be doing detailed assessments as to what the government is going to be required to do. As far as we are aware, the water supply system is quite adequate for the moment. The public infrastructure will be tackled and dealt with."
Ingraham also brought tons of Red Cross and NEMA supplies to the island on the Bahamasair jet that flew him in. Minutes after the jet landed, those supplies were offloaded and distributed throughout the island.
Ingraham said the supply of electricity on Inagua was of great concern, and officials from the Bahamas Electricity Corporation (BEC) were looking into the matter. Ingraham said he had been told that power should be restored to the island by the end of the month.
That afternoon, BEC 's General manager Kevin Basden was seen driving around the island with two technicians, looking at the downed power lines. He said BEC was hoping to have power restored by the end of the month.
Ingraham also said the Ministry of Education should soon get the ball rolling in terms of putting the island's children back in classes.
"Education will make some decisions to cause students to return to classrooms in the shortest possible time," said Ingraham. "Whether or not that is in existing classrooms, some of the church halls or the buildings in the community, is a matter to be determined, but it is not expected that children in Inagua will be out of school for weeks hereafter. Major work needs to be done to some of their buildings, which have been condemned before now. That's going to take time to do. The restoration of the classrooms that they were using appears to be something that could be done reasonably speedily, depending on labor and material availability."
While the Ministry of Education figures out where to place kids in the next few weeks, they will, however, have one less place to play. Hurricane Ike also destroyed the public playground.
In a statement released late yesterday by PLP Chairman Glenys Hanna-Martin, who was among those in the PM's delegation to Inagua yesterday, she said the party "extends its sympathy to all those persons who have suffered loss as a consequence of natural disasters over the last few days."
"In particular, we hold in our prayers the people of Inagua, where today we saw considerable property damage and loss on that island," she said. "We urge all Bahamians to support the national effort in bringing restoration to those islands affected and we pledge our full assistance to the government's efforts in this regard."
Hanna-Martin also urged the party's members to "contribute generously as needed to the national agencies such as the Red Cross, or to deliver donated items to our national headquarters on Farrington Road, where we will ensure all goods reach affected areas expeditiously."
She added; "We stand in full solidarity and support with our brothers and sisters who are today seeking to recover from the terrible experience of being impacted by a major hurricane."
By JUAN MCCARTNEY
