We're launching this podcast to give you updated headlines and stories as we have them from across the Southeast in this critical time. I really hope this information is helpful. You know, hurricanes are really nothing but anxiety from the moment they form somewhere, usually off the coast of Africa, as they march across the Atlantic to make landfall over here, there as anxiety as we watched them make their pathway
across the Atlantic. There's more anxieties we worry about our homes and our families, and then there's a lot more anxiety once the storm passes. How did everyone survive, what was damaged? What's done? What do we have to do? How are we going to pay for it? There's anxiety for the first responders who have to leave their own families and their own homes to go out and help us. There's even anxiety, yes, for reporters who have to give up their houses hope they're okay and hit the road
and do the same. And there's anxiety from families who are worried about loved ones who are right in a storm's path. Eloys Thompson Jones is one of those warriors. She works with us at I heart radio in Miami, but she is from the Bahamas and still has lots of family there. She says it was a special place growing up as the island girl. It was different from living over here. It was really nice and laid back. It was not a fast pace like it is over here.
It's very innocent and it was great. So you still have a lot of family on the islands. It's twelve siblings, UM, seven brothers and five sisters and they spread out throughout the islands, and the main islands were Nassau, Freeport and my Shober Aberco. So in my shopber my a, nieces and nephews that our families there. During the hurricane, they tried to get off the island, but it was too late, so they had to stay. They find everyone the closet.
God find everyone. But two of my nephews were lost for a couple of days, so they did find them afterwards, drifted, but they found him and that was good. Thank God for that. But you have a sibling now who's in the hospital. Yes, and Freeport, I have my sister and her husband and her two daughters and UM. The house's damage during the hurricane. One of the palm trees that fell in there and fell on top of her shoulder
and break a collar bone. But she's recovering. They all went to Nassau now, but the powers out and the phone mines are down. How are you staying in touch with family? Will my other sister communicate and tell me all the information over here? You know, she tried not to tell me everything. Some of the only sibling Behamian sibling over here. I don't have any other family over here, Behman, except I Heart radio, so she didn't give me all
the information my others. So you're using text messages and WhatsApp, yes, exactly. And she was in Nasa, so it was much better. But I couldn't hear from any of my family in my Shaba or a Lutheran or on Freeport. You always ore you holding up being so far away from them all. I got tired of looking at TV given the news because it's very depressing how the hurricane was beaten up on these islands. So it sounds like all of your
family members are at least accounting for now. Yes, it is a blessing and press with all the help from the US and my Heart family help a lot. So they're safe now well, being so far removed from all those relatives, that must feel good at least to see that the country and really the whole world are getting
motivated and energized to try to help the Bahamas. It's a place so many of us have gone to vacation too, and love and uh, it must be at least comforting to know that you're seeing the world cares will It makes me feel really good that they are so helpful and loving and caring, you know, and especially coming to work and didn't want to come to work. We're not
knowing what's going on. But after a while when I come to work, and with all the help and all the care that I see around the world, like you say, and especially my heart, that I help in the Bahamian my family and the beham At families so much. I
thank them very much. I know the northern Bahamas sort of bore the brunt of all this, but the southern Islands and the Bahamas are actually in pretty good shape, and they need tourists to come back and spend money and invest money and keep people employed, get them jobs and keep the economy going, get it, get it back on its feet. So what do you want people to know about the Bahamas and sort of encourage them to continue booking their vacations if if it's allowed. Well, like
they always say, is better in the Bahamas. It is such a beautiful island, islands and also the most beautiful blue uh Takewoise water in the world and nothing. If you ever want to just go on a vacation and to forget about everything else, that's the place to go. That's Elois Thompson Jones obviously a proud Bahamian and a member of the I Heart media family. And what will be next for the Bahamas? Do we make Bahamas two point oh? Do we rebuild it the way it was
or trying to create something entirely different. That's not for Americans to decide, but American dollars will have a big say in that decision. Mike Gunter is a professor at Rollins College and has looked at the future of the
Bahamas and what happens with climate change. Out of tragedy can come great opportunity and you know, we've we've seen this in history over you know, the last century, where the US has been faced with with high um obstacles where you be talking about you know, World War Two, the Cold War, in organizing ways that meet the challenge and UM address the problem and connect all the different dots.
This is not This is not a conservative liberal issue. Yes, there are reasons to have politic called debate about what the policies with the specific policy should be UM. But the fact that this is a problem, UM is is not a Republican or Democrat, or liberal or conservative issue.
There's UM. There's real reasons for, regardless of political persuasion, for you to be concerned about the fact that while no hurricane can be attributed to climate change, the increased intensity of hurricanes UM can be Hurricane hurricanes are just weather events. UM. You need thirty years of weather data to be able to talk about climate and climate change. UM. But the fact that these hurricanes are more intense UM today is a direct result of climate change. We'll have
a new episode in a few hours. Until then, hanging there and stay safe. I'm Rory O'Neill.