Disaster Profile

On September 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane in The Bahamas with wind speeds in excess of 185mph, lashing The Bahamian islands of Great Abaco (pop. ~17,200) and Grand Bahama (pop. ~51,000). After striking The Bahamas, Dorian’s traveling speed slowed to 1 mph over Grand Bahama, prolonging the island’s exposure to life-threatening storm surges of 18-23 feet above normal tide levels. Dorian is the strongest hurricane on record for The Bahamas and has tied a record for the strongest Atlantic hurricane to make landfall.

Our Work

With immense support from our local and global partners, we’re committed to performing continuous work in The Bahamas through February 2022.

Before our program suspension due to COVID-19, our teams had been working tirelessly to get schools back up and running in Marsh Harbour, performing work on seven schools. Since our return to Marsh Harbour, we’ve contributed to the completion of Central Abaco Primary School (the biggest public school on the island), Every Child Counts (ECC) and the rebuilt Little Darlings Academy.

We’re incredibly pleased to announce that Every Child Counts School (ECC) is now complete, and the team celebrated the official handover at the end of June! With the many challenges we’ve faced in The Bahamas, the completion of ECC is a huge milestone for our programs and is a demonstration of the significant impact we’ve made since the restart of our volunteer-powered operations last fall. Thanks to everyone who has supported the work at ECC; it’s now a beautiful, resilient school ready for students and staff to safely return to in the coming months!

After months of hard work, Little Darlings Academy was completed in September 2021! This school will directly impact over 170 students and staff who have been out of school and work since Dorian devastated the island in 2019. The school’s completion comes at the peak of hurricane season, and we’re pleased to have built a disaster-resilient school that can be used as a hurricane shelter for central Abaco.

Having completed Little Darlings Academy, our teams continue to work on a variety of needs for residential homes. We continue to engage in response work including mucking and gutting, debris removal, and mold sanitation. Additionally, as roof repair continues to be one of the highest needs for residents on Abaco, we’re running our Resilient Roof Repair & Rebuild Program to support these needs in as many homes as possible. We’ll continue supporting families with long-needed interior repairs to help bring homes up to a livable standard.

A special thank you to our long-term partner, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, and generous supporters for helping us reach our initial funding goal.

Current Activities

The final roof in our work queue is done! Sixteen roofs have been restored with metal sheathing and the teams have become close with each of the families that they’ve worked with. Some of these families have been separated and living on different islands for the last two years due to the damage of Hurricane Dorian. With a secure roof, they can now return to the island and continue to rebuild their lives. We are excited to continue our work in The Bahamas through February 2022, supporting the communities of Marsh Harbour. We will focus on residential homes to provide disaster-resilient housing to the communities affected by Dorian.

Community Stories

One of the roofs that the team recently completed in Marsh Harbour was for Doranell. The scope of work for this particular roof included reinforcing the roof structure with hurricane clips, installing underlayment and fitting standing seam metal roofing. This is what Doranell had to say to the team of three who worked on her home:

“I just wanted to say a heartfelt thank you to [Ashanta], Mike and Kieran. I have gotten so much compliments on my roof that it brought me to tears. God bless all of you.”

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