And so Hurricane Dorian destroyed an island or two of the 700 islands that make up the Bahamas and the loss of life and missing persons might not be well understood for months. Day and night I searched for new YouTube testimonials and videos that were not PR for charities proving that they were there helping. As criticisms came in about the Bahamian government's handling of the disaster, in particular unwillingness to reveal the death toll, so came the many testimonials of people who saw others swept away. One testimonial from a child was that they were swimming and saw a lot of dead bodies in the water. How many of the 2500 people who have been reported missing will prove to be alive? If 70,000 to 76,000 people are homeless and have lost everything, and 2500 are on lists of the missing, and about 5000 people have been transported to another island, or in some cases to the United States, well, do the math.
So here is what I think: SHOCK has numbed and befuddled many, including officials.
Some bodies may wash up on shore but it seems more of them are deep under the sea.
DNA will be used to identify many.
And there is a politeness involved. If a dead body cannot be identified, and the loved ones cannot be located, who is there to tell? Who is there to come claim a body?
It comes at a time when there are easily 50,000 homeless people just in Los Angeles - County. My guess is it's more like 150,000.
Every day people live like they lost everything to a Hurricane.
Is it smart to build an entire new town in the same place?
I remain unable to answer.
C 2019 Christine Trzyna
