The New Plymouth Hardware store has been smashed to kindling. More important, Curry’s Grocery Store, too. Some of the boats at Donny’s Marina have been broken to matchsticks. Others lie on their sides in the middle of the street.
This barrier island off Great Abaco in the northern Bahamas was already a community apart. When Hurricane Dorian struck on Sunday, it was completely isolated.
We didn’t leave because we’d been through other storms, said Craig Curry, 55. But not this. This was nothing like we’ve ever seen.
Curry spent two days battling Hurricane Dorian in his home. When howling winds blew the first window out, he nailed his dining room table to the hole. Two more windows exploded, and then his door. He took shelter in his basement.
We fought that storm for two days, he said. Now we’re homeless. There’s nothing left.
Green Turtle Cay is a tightknit community of about 500 people. Everyone here is family either because they’re related, or because they’ve lived here together for so long.
Now their island paradise has turned to hell. Islanders are struggling without power, without water, without a steady supply of food.
The Coast Guard staged rescues earlier Wednesday. Chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen nonprofit group dropped off boxes of chicken and rice. The government sounded the all-clear, lifting storm warnings for the Abacos, Grand Bahama, Bimini and other battered islands.
But fear here is spreading.
We need tarps. We need medical supplies. We need more water. We need chain saws, said boat captain Rontonio Levarity, 35. We can’t do this alone.