FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
Mudd was forgotten even be-
fore the storm, residents say.
The better conditions that offi-
cials promised for more than a
decade never materialized.
“Now they treat us like they
did before,” said Alexandre Lic-
antel, a 42-year-old house
painter who lived 18 years in
the Mudd. “Like we don’t exist.”
Licantel’s two-room shack
was smashed to pieces.
Islanders drove half-de-
stroyed cars, some with their
front windows blown out, gin-
gerly around fallen power lines
and debris. Some dragged rolla-
way suitcases toward the hospi-
tal in search of shelter and food.
Emmanuel Nelson, a 46-year-
old tradesman, sat on the stoop
of a house blown off its founda-
tion. He and five other men are
squatting there now.
“We have no aid. No one is
helping us,” he said. He said
they have gone house to aban-
doned house in search of food.
“This is survival,” he said.
“We need to help ourselves.”
Some homeless islanders
have sought shelter in a munici-
pal building. Several said they
were told Thursday to leave and
find shelter elsewhere. Their
accounts could not be immedi-
ately confirmed.
“Where am I sleeping to-
night, huh?” said Javie Bien-
aimer, a 48-year-old repairman.
“What am I supposed to eat?
What are any of us supposed to
eat? Come on, man. it’s been six
days.”
Alouivor, the carpenter, said
he hadn’t been able to bathe,
brush his teeth or change his
clothes in six days.
Haitian immigrants squat-
ting in houses near the health
center said they were doing
what they could to survive.
“Please take me with you,”
Licantel said. “They have for-
gotten us. If I stay here, I am
going to die.”
[email protected]Maria Sacchetti and Rachelle
Krygier in Miami, Zoeann Murphy in
Marsh Harbour, and Jasper Ward in
Nassau contributed to this report.She said her mother was carried
away by rushing water, and her
brother died trying to save her.
She held up a passport.
“This is my mother,” she said.
“She is dead in the water.”
The body remains near
what’s left of her house.
“Where should I go?” she
asked. “I have nowhere to go.”
From the air, the Mudd is an
expanse of broken rubble. The
crushed huts are no longer
recognizable among the splin-
tered timber and twisted tin
roofs. An enclave of poor immi-
grants mostly from Haiti, the“We need to go,” she said. “We
need to get out of here. We have
families, too.”
Sitha Silien, 25, sat outside
with her 2-year-old son, Jaden.the hospital because she had
heard a rumor that people
would be evacuated from there
to Nassau. By late Thursday,
there was no sign of rescue.at a hospital.
“The rich people, yeah, they
can get out,” said Charlese
McIntosh, a 33-year-old wait-
ress whose house was totaled in
the storm. “They take their
friends, their family, in helicop-
ters and small planes.”
She had salvaged a few items
of clothing, and hung them on
bushes outside the Marsh Har-
bour Healthcare Center. Hun-
dreds of residents had shel-
tered there for days. On Thurs-
day morning, they were cleared
out.
McIntosh said she came topointed — through trees
stripped bare and crushed — to
the slum, which had been re-
duced to a field of dense debris.
He said he rode out the storm
inside a refrigerator in his
home.
“When I opened the door,” he
said. “Oh Lord, oh Lord. Every-
thing gone.”
Bahamian authorities con-
tinued Thursday to assess the
destruction wrought by the
most powerful storm to strike
in decades. Officials raised the
number of confirmed deaths to
30 but expect the toll will keep
climbing.
The U.S. Coast Guard, the
British Royal Navy, relief or-
ganizations and volunteers con-
tinued to deliver emergency
supplies and evacuate victims.
But in a storm-ravaged nation
of 400,000 spread across more
than 700 islands, conditions
and communications are chal-
lenging.
“This is the worst I’ve seen in
the Bahamas by far,” said Rear
Adm. Eric Jones, commander of
the Coast Guard’s 7th District
in Miami. Storm surge and
debris in many areas have pre-
vented helicopters from land-
ing, boats from navigating and
trucks from driving.
“Physically, there’s just roads
that aren’t there anymore,”
Jones said.
Marsh Harbour, the largest
town on the northern island of
Great Abaco, has laid bare the
inequality in natural disaster.
Some wealthy islanders have
paid private aviation firms up-
ward of $20,000 to be airlifted
out. But the people of the Mudd
are stuck here. Some are squat-
ting in broken, abandoned
homes. Others are scrambling
for floor space in shelters with-
out steady food or water.
At night, residents say, the
sound of gunfire has echoed
through the wreckage. For days,
there has been virtually no law
in the streets. The only armed
guards visible on a busy Thurs-
day were the security personnel
BAHAMAS FROM A
As Dorian’s death toll rises, the Bahamas’ poorest despair
CAROLYN VAN HOUTEN/THE WASHINGTON POST
From left, Allan George, Villefranc Michel and Tares Diefuerne on Thursday in Marsh Harbour, Bahamas. Some wealthy islanders have
paid upward of $20,000 to be airlifted out, but the people of the Mudd, an enclave of mostly Haitian immigrants, have yet to see relief.hurricane dorian
“The rich people, yeah, they can get out.
They take their friends, their family, in
helicopters and small planes.”
Charlese McIntosh, 33, a waitress whose house was destroyed in the stormWE WILL HONOR ANY COMPETITOR’S COUPONS AND MEET THEIR ADVERTISED PRICES. Exclusions apply. While supplies last. Items, styles & colors vary by store
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