If you travel 200 miles due east of Miami, you will eventually hit the Abacos, a chain of islands and cays in the northern part of the Bahamas that over 17,000 people call home. Robert and Phyllis Cornea were among those people. As of Sunday, they were homeless.
“All the main buildings, gone,” Robert, a missionary who’d lived in the Abacos for 50 years, told CBS News. “It’s gone. Everything is gone.”
They’re not the only ones on the islands suffering unimaginable losses. In the catastrophic wake of Hurricane Dorian, which lashed the Bahamas Sunday as a devastating Category 5 storm, over 30 people are dead. At least one top-ranking Bahamian official expects that number to soar, CNN reported. The Red Cross estimates that nearly half the homes on the islands of Great Abaco and Grand Bahama have been severely damaged or destroyed, Time reported, and over 60,000 people will need assistance finding food and clean drinking water.
Coral Vita is one of the groups on the ground that has sprung into action to help the Bahamian people in Hurricane Dorian’s aftermath. Before the storm hit, it was devoted to restoring dying coral reefs in the Atlantic Ocean. Now they’ve started a GoFundMe to support the “general on the ground help” that the reef restoration company intends to carry out.
“Many of our neighbors’ and friends’ houses are completely destroyed and much of the island is underwater,” Coral Vita said on its GoFundMe. “The people and country of the Bahamas urgently need help and supplies as soon as possible.”
The team pledges to use the money raised to bring “medicine, first-aid, water, generators, canned food, hygienic products and other basic essentials” to families on the island who need them most. Any leftover funds will go toward “long term rebuilding and relief efforts,” the group said.
Coral Vita cautions that humankind needs to take action now to build coastal ecosystems resilient enough to withstand our planet’s destabilizing climate.
“This storm is a prime example of how we need to protect, restore and create resilient coastal ecosystems that can adapt to climate change, shelter communities from natural disasters, and provide livelihoods for local populations,” the group said on its website. “In the long term, Coral Vita will continue to work to make that happen here and around the world, but for now we need all the help we can get to directly help those in The Bahamas in dire need.”
To find out more about how you can help their efforts, click here.
More: Giving Coral Reefs New Life
Tag: hurricane
A Hurricane Demolished My City. My Military Experience Is Helping Me Rebuild It
When I took the job as city manager for Panama City, Florida — the place I’ve called home since 1988 — I never expected to be thrown back into Baghdad.
You see, this past year, I retired after 39 years with the Army, leaving as a two-star general. During my decades of service, I’ve seen what cities look like after they’ve been decimated. As a civil affairs officer in the Army Reserves, I was part of humanitarian efforts in Central America and the Caribbean. I also worked with civilians displaced by war in Baghdad and helped rebuild their city as commanding general of the 108th Training Command.
And I can tell you that after Hurricane Michael ravaged my city this year, it didn’t look all that different from Baghdad.
I’ve trained for exactly this kind of destruction. My experience in the military and opportunities to command have enabled me to not only help the citizens of Panama City recover, but also make our city better and stronger. I want to give back to my community, because my community has given me so much.
I’m not originally from Panama City. I spent my youth moving around — as an Army brat does — and I went to tons of different high schools; a new school for practically every year. But as a Boy Scout, service to my country and to my fellow citizens always stayed consistent.
My family also played a role. I had strong ties to the military growing up, with my father serving in Vietnam and my grandfather serving in World War II. And even though I was raised in the Vietnam era of the late 1960s and early ’70s, when returning soldiers were shunned and spat on, I still felt a duty to serve my country.
I eventually landed in the ROTC at Auburn University in Alabama and then the Army. That’s when everything changed for me. I was sent to Ansbach, Germany, during what I think was a very dark period for our military. This was around 1982, and I was seeing the effects of Vietnam on our soldiers in real time.
I was a young lieutenant then, and I remember taking soldiers to the hospital for in-patient alcohol and drug treatment. These men, who had served in Vietnam, were just emotionally crushed. I wouldn’t say we were a valueless army, but an army that had no compass. Things started to turn around, when a new division commander came in. He brought in a team of unbelievable leaders, and I saw what the power of leadership can do. When you uplift people and give them what they need, they start to raise their head a bit more.
Fast-forward some three decades later, when I was just a few months from retirement with the Army and I accepted the job of city manager. I’ve lived in Panama City for so many years, and as I was going through my military career, the city took care of me. It was my time to take care of the citizens here. Little did I know that Hurricane Michael, one of the worst hurricanes to slam the Florida Panhandle in decades, was going to hit just two weeks later.
After Michael made landfall, the mayor likened the area to Baghdad. He wasn’t wrong — it does look like Baghdad, except with trees. There was massive destruction. The city’s infrastructure was almost entirely collapsed, and an estimated 90 percent of homes were damaged or destroyed — like a war zone, but with nature as the adversary. The people here have the same needs as those in war-torn countries.
So I thought back to my time in service — my deployment to Bosnia, short time in Afghanistan and year in Iraq, where I helped rebuild infrastructure and organized relief efforts. A big benefit from my time in the Army is that I’ve been able to translate those skills to my civilian career. I approached this new crisis facing my city in a similar way. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, I worked to help ensure everyone’s safety and security. Then I focused on coordinating the efforts to provide food, water and shelter. Now I’m looking at the longer term, asking myself things like, How do I reinvigorate and rev up the economic engine of this community?
I met with one of Verizon’s top executives when she came down to visit. Verizon has about 80 percent of the market share here, and when their towers got shredded it crippled recovery efforts. After explaining the needs of my city, Verizon decided to reinvest $25 million in the community. Initially, the company was planning on creating 5G networks in four cities. Now there are five, with Panama City joining Los Angeles, Houston, Indianapolis and Sacramento.
We in Panama City are resilient. I know, because I’m applying my military training and experience to this new problem set — and let me tell you we have a wicked set of problems currently — but Panama City can, and will, come back.
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As told to NationSwell staff writer Joseph Darius Jaafari. This essay has been edited for clarity and style. Read more stories of service here.
If Another Superstorm Hits, This Dirt Barricade Will Protect NYC
Everyone — but especially New Yorkers — remember Superstorm Sandy’s seemingly endless destruction back in 2012. Costing the region billions of dollars, it was an example of what nature could do to our infrastructure and our society.
Preventing damage like what occurred is crucial — and a big part of what needs to be done to prepare for the future. That’s what the winning project of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rebuild by Design contest aims to do. And there’s no better way to do it than to also make some beautiful public space in the process.
The Bridging Berm is a new project on Manhattan’s lower east side. While there’s no timeline for completion, once it is finished, it will shelter 150,000 residents and a power sub-station from the effects of storms and rising sea levels.
The 2.19 miles along the East River that the Bridging Berm will occupy is currently a public park, though it has few entrances and is very isolated from the city. The Bridging Berm will change that — improving both access and the public space itself. Even more importantly, it will raise the riverbank to nine feet above its current level. Had this been around during Sandy, there still would have been four feet to spare.
Jeremy Barbour of Tacklebox Architecture tells Next City that “the strength of the proposal is in the way they have addressed both the vertical and the horizontal through a series of programmed berms and bridges that mediate the boundary between the waterfront and the edge of the city — defining a place for community gathering and a way to inhabit the in-between.”
And a defining place it will be, with bike paths along the water, boating and fishing areas, as well as athletic fields. Clearly, there will something for everybody.
This multipurpose space is just one of three components to the larger “BIG U” proposal in the Rebuild By Design contest; roll-down storm gates on the FDR bridge as well as a berm-and-educational facility in lower Manhattan are also part of the plan.
The Bridging Berm could have the largest impact, though. With such a dense population and the power station in the area, not to mention the improved public space, it is an exceptional urban planning vision.
DON’T MISS: 8 Inspiring Urban Renewal Projects
A New Museum Exhibit Educates About Disaster Preparedness
From ‘superstorm’ Sandy in 2012 to the countless forest fires that ravage the West every year, natural disasters are increasingly becoming a large part of American life. As a result, combating Mother Nature when she’s at her angriest requires not just innovation, but education, too.
That’s exactly what a new exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. aims to do, according to Next City. Organized into categories of earth, wind, fire, and water, “Designing for Disaster” is educating visitors about the history of disaster relief and prevention, as well as what works and what doesn’t.
Tales of large-scale projects such as flexible staircase joints at UC Berkeley’s California Memorial Stadium will surely draw in visitors, though it is the hands-on demonstrations and focus on everyday solutions that this exhibit is making the most difference with.
As the Washington Post writes, “The exhibit’s most compelling demonstrations show how innovative engineering solutions can reduce the impact of disasters and, in fact, already are.”
Whether highlighting family disaster plans, showcasing earthquake drills, or using an interactive feature to help visitors learn about the durability of different roof styles, Designing for Disaster is spreading knowledge.
As Americans flock to our nation’s capital during the summer vacation months, they can learn how others are preparing for natural disasters. And with that education, perhaps they can educate members of their own communities on how best to prevent future damage.
After all, while you can’t avoid Mother Nature’s fury, you can make sure you’re ready to meet it head on.
MORE: The Competition for Disaster Relief Funds Heats Up