When he woke up on the morning of October 24, Timothy Jones, a resident of Hanna Hill Eight Mile Rock, had no idea what was in store.
Within hours, a vicious sea surge was rushing into his house and his roof eventually caved in under the force of Hurricane Wilma.
“The water came inside the house and the water started building up inside the house,” he recalled on Monday, one week after the storm.
“The only thing I could do is get my stuff together and I carried my family to a safe place-I didn’t even have time to get my documents-everything is destroyed. I don’t have anything.”
But despite his losses, Mr. Jones said he is thankful to be alive – and thankful to have a roof over his head and safe accommodations for his family of three.
Mr. Jones is among the 260 people being accommodated at the Royal Oasis Resort, which was closed more than a year ago after Hurricane Frances created widespread damage.
The government announced the plan after completing negotiations with the resort’s owners to accommodate the storm victims.
Prior to moving into the resort on Sunday, Mr. Jones said he and his family had been staying behind the Eight Mile Rock High School.
“I thank God that the nightmare is over, ” he said. “We are in a safe place now and [the government] is doing the best that [it] can, and I appreciate that a lot.”
The hurricane victims were up to Monday occupying 67 rooms at the resort’s Country Club, according to Kendal Pinder, resident manager at the property.
Mr. Pinder told The Bahama Journal that the storm victims being accommodated include families of three to six persons, and another seven rooms were also available for additional occupants.
One of the villas in the Country Club currently houses Defence Force officers who have been assigned to maintain law and order on the premises.
Local government chairperson for the Pinder’s Point Township and Assistant Resident Manager of the housing facility, Bernadette Johnson, said she helped to evacuate many of the residents during the storm.
She said the training she received during a course on natural disaster preparedness and her own harrowing experience during the storm enabled her to provide the needed sensitivity to the dislodged persons.
Mrs. Johnson said that many of the homeless in the resort came from the Bevans Town area where a good number of houses were extensively damaged or destroyed.
Like Mr. Jones, other residents at the property said they were relieved that they were given comfortable accommodations.
Many of the homeless said they had spent nearly a week on hard floors in inconvenient shelters and other lodgings after Hurricane Wilma passed through.
Doris Grant, a diabetic amputee whose home was extensively damaged in Hunters, said she now feels safe at the resort.
The 80-year-old woman resident said that she is grateful for the security her new accommodation provides.
“I feel happy that I’m now in the shelter,” she said. “My home, I don’t even know where that is now.”
Ms. Grant said she hadn’t visited her house since Hurricane Wilma.
Assistant Director of the Department of Social Services, Lillian Quant-Forbes, who is responsible for shelter management, said first preference was given to the neediest homeless families.
“There are teams in the various communities who have gone around and performed assessments and these assessments are still ongoing,” Mrs. Quant-Forbes said.
She explained that the teams comprise personnel from the Department of Social Services, Ministry of Housing, and the police force.
Officials fill out questionnaires after questioning storm victims and then make a decision on who should be accommodated at the resort, according to Mrs. Quant-Forbes.
She said that government workers have been placed at various help desks throughout Grand Bahama to process storm victims.
Additionally, in an effort to be thorough, Mrs. Quant-Forbes said that government workers have taken “a hands on” approach to render assistance by going door to door.
She also said that some storm victims at the resort were requesting food, cable and hot water.
Mrs. Quant-Grant said that while officials were providing the basic necessities, storm victims should not expect any specific luxuries, like cable television.
“I realize that many persons have lost everything and the government is doing the best that it can to assist them,” she said, “but persons need to meet us at some point where they can be responsible for their needs.”
It is unknown at this time how long displaced hurricane victims will occupy 74 of the rooms at the Royal Oasis Resort.
By: Daphne McIntosh, The Bahama Journal
