From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
Sharon Turner: No Honour, No Integrity & No Humanity - The Aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin
By Sharon Turner
Oct 21, 2015 - 8:24:01 AM
Dear Editor,
In the aftermath of Joaquin's devastation and the failed
government response prior, during and after the storm, our elected officials
are not only showing their lack of honour and integrity, but also a shameless
lack of conscience. People and their children were forced to escape for their
lives into their ceilings and cars for over a day because there were no
shelters open for them to go to. Have you ever looked at the ceiling of where
you live? Ever been up in there? Imagine spending at-least 20 hours in there
terrified because if the water rises any higher, you and your children will
drown right up in that ceiling.
People were not able to safely protect life and property
because by the time they knew what was going on, weather conditions made such
attempts at precautions unsafe. If a structure's windows and doors are properly
secured before a hurricane, it can increase the chance of preventing roofs from
being blown off the structures or being otherwise compromised. But with no
appreciable advanced notice, how many would have had time or immediate
on-island resources to safely carry out such measures?
Satellite phones that all island officials ought to have had
were inoperable or officials did not know each other's numbers. People were
unable to communicate with persons on their island or outside their island for
as much as a week during and after the storm. People were forced to swim from
settlement to settlement in a desperate quest for survival. No shelters
available to go to. And those are just some of the horrors. We have not heard
anywhere near the half of them all. I can personally attest with evidence to
what I speak of regarding the communications failures as well as some of the
harrowing rescue attempts being carried out during the height of Category 4
conditions in the Central and Southeast Bahamas of persons trapped or
hunkered in homes that were crumbling and being ripped apart around and on top
of them.
And with all this and more, government officials still
refuse to acknowledge any failings or wrongdoings. You cannot fix what you
refuse to acknowledge. They are showing so much contempt for the nation that
they do not even feel the need to offer standard fake political apologies
anymore. This is sick, and so are all those who in the aftermath of human
suffering are only primarily concerned about their personal reputations, their
job security and their political standing and security. If the government did
as good a job racing to save their own hides as they could have in doing all
that should and could have been done for Bahamians in this storm, the personal
outcomes and horrors for many people could have been very, very different.
Claiming no reported storm deaths is one thing - but what you do have are
thousands of people who are alive and living victims - victims not only of
Joaquin, but of a government that failed them in the most basic of its
responsibilities to them.
Sharon Turner
Disclaimer:
The views expressed here are solely those of the author in his/her
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