Program Summary 

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 travelling 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

Our teams are working tirelessly to get schools back up and running in Marsh Harbour. More than fifty volunteers from eight countries have joined us so far, and their impact within the community is already palpable.

We are currently working on the St. Francis de Sales school. The facility has been fully mucked and gutted and the roof outfitted with temporary repairs. As our current base of operations, the school has also become a gathering place for community events. We’re also making quick progress at Every Child Counts, a school that serves students with developmental disabilities. Three of five school buildings have been fully mucked and gutted, with preparation in progress to begin reconstruction.

A special thank you to our long-term partner, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, and generous supporters for helping us reach the $4M match goal. While this is incredible, we have found the scope and scale of the devastation to be even more extreme than first estimated. This leads us to estimate we’ll need a minimum of $6M for the recovery work over the next two years. We appreciate your continued support to assist The Bahamas on the long road to recovery.

All Hands and Hearts arrives early and stays until the job is done. The time to get involved is now!