Hurricane Dorian - Update 8

I missed last week's blog opportunity due mostly to the chaos of getting between islands and preparing for a distribution activity. One of the dilemmas of a response in an archipelago is simply getting around, communicating and shipping items. Those of you that are Facebook friends of mine would have seen me on the "ferry" between Great Abaco Island and Moore's Island.

For those that know their Disney resorts, this trip took us straight past Castaway Cay. CC is an island (originally Gorda Cay) that was bought by Disney as an exclusive island for their cruise ships to stop at.

Back to the hurricane efforts though:

The point of going to Moore's was to distribute non-food items to the community. As their school has been re-established already, there are a number of evacuees from Abaco here. However, they only have food come in by ferry twice a week and their "shopping" is limited to the post office and a small grocer - both of which have not been able to restock since the Hurricane.

Of a population of 900 on the island (not including undocumented migrants or evacuees from Abaco), only around 30 are currently still employed, all by the government. There is only one nurse on the island and no doctors.

We were able to ship over a range of goods: clothes, toiletries, person hygiene items, baby goods etc and support 85 households (around 350 individuals). We concurrently had a team with us comprising personnel from The Salvation Army, the World Food Program and Samaritan's Purse, who registered people for inclusion in our vulnerabilities assessment and therefore future distributions. \

We are really grateful to the church at the International Grace Ministry that allowed us to use their church for the day.