Anya Weir, who lives near Miami, Florida, and David Duggan, who lives in the Bahamas, spoke to the JEP this week to explain what it had been like living in the path of the storm, which initially looked as if it would hit their locations but then tracked away.
Mr Duggan, a Canadian who lived in Jersey for 21 years before moving to Nassau in February, said that apart from enduring tropical-force winds, an 18-hour power cut and flooding, both he and his home had escaped untouched.
‘If it was about one degree and four minutes south it would have completely wiped out New Providence [Nassau]. So it was close – it was a near miss – but it was a direct hit on Abaco and Grand Bahama and those are two large island groups when you look at them on a map – so it is quite significant,’ he said.
‘It is unlike anything anyone has experienced here – it is the largest in history from what we know right now. They have building codes here where structures have to withstand winds of 150mph and they have to have metal trusses in the roof as well.
‘But these were winds – when it was category five – that were gusting over 200mph, which is just unprecedented.’
Mr Duggan, who previously lived in St Ouen and worked in the finance industry, said that he had flown back into Nassau after dropping off his two young sons who were visiting from western Canada – just hours before the storm was due to hit.
He added that he kept his two daughters – Izzy (21) and Lucy (19), who both live in Jersey – updated during the hurricane.
‘We were actually able to fly alongside the left side of the hurricane. If we had left it three hours later we would not have been able to fly. By the time we landed at around midday on the Sunday it was becoming an issue and the airport closed soon after,’ he said.
‘We were very fortunate in Nassau because we only received tropical storm-force conditions. We were only getting the bands from the bottom of the system, which gave us significant rainfall, flash-flooding and high winds. But Abaco has been destroyed and half of Grand Bahama is underwater because of the 25ft storm surge. The hurricane actually stood still for around 24 hours and just pummelled them.’
Meanwhile Anya Weir, who lives in Pinecrest near Miami, but used to live in St Ouen, reported panic-buying and supply shortages in the run-up to the forecasted hurricane.
‘Miami is like a ghost town right now. Businesses are still boarded up and the schools are still closed, although we dodged a bullet,’ she said.
‘This hurricane was scary as it had a different plan to everything that they forecasted.
‘So it was worrying not knowing exactly what it would do. Every gas station had huge lines and all the supermarkets were running out of supplies.’
Mrs Weir said that it was the second major storm that she and her family had had to prepare for – following Hurricane Irma two years ago.
‘Irma was headed straight towards our village of Pinecrest, which is nine miles south of downtown [Miami],’ she said.
‘We were super worried – there was no fuel anywhere, supermarket shelves were empty and I stood in a line at the American version of B&Q for over four hours just to try to get plywood for our front door. Everyone standing there looked sleep deprived and extremely anxious.
‘We had just bought our house two weeks before… but luckily that storm switched course very late on.’
A number of Jersey-based businesses with offices in the Bahamas have also been checking on their colleagues following the storm.
Gerard Gardner, global head of EFG Wealth Solutions, said his company had approximately 60 staff based in Nassau in the Bahamas, including one employee on secondment from Jersey.
‘We have been in touch with our colleagues over the weekend and believe everyone is safe,’ he said.
‘The weather has been very poor and this meant the office was closed on Monday, but we were hopeful of being able to open yesterday [Tuesday].’
A spokeswoman for Butterfield, which has offices in both Jersey and the Bahamas, said that their Nassau-based staff and office had escaped unharmed.
‘New Providence [Nassau] was spared the full brunt of Dorian, which passed directly over Abaco and Grand Bahama islands,’ she said.
‘Although there has been rain and flooding in the capital, and telecommunications are down, our office is fine and staff are working there today (relying on cellular phone lines and data at the moment).’
Jean Le Maistre, chairman of the overseas aid charity Side by Side, said that it was still too early to say whether there would be an Island-based fundraising campaign but that it was likely that a
decision would be made in the coming days.
