Hurricane Dorian September 6th, 9am Search and Rescue Mode

Soon it will be Canada's problem, but Nova Scotia in particular, and by then it should be an extra tropical storm and not caused too much damage. So now attention turns to the Bahamas, which is still in search and rescue mode, not recovery mode just yet. The US Coastguard among the first agencies to respond. Yesterday, there was little pockets, i

would say, of devastation. You had some places that looked like they had seen small parts of the storm, and other places where you had homes that were completely leveled and still floated as of yesterday. Today, we were tasked with trying to find smaller islands that were kind of out of touch. They got some coordinates from another helicopter. We came across the island and they were about fifty

people on the island. It was completely devastated. All the homes were completely flattened, vegetation gone, and when we got there they were there had already been about ten or fifteen people met invact and when we got there there were ten people roughly with varying injuries um, some possible fractures, some people so that their homes had fallen on them. UM. So our main priority was getting the most injured out. And that's the problem when places are really just decimated.

You were working from the ground up. In one case. You know they're trying to make rescues, but they can't even see. They're limited to daytime operations because there's no electricity, and when there's no electricity, there's no light head of public works. And the Bahamas was on ABC's Good Morning America for Life, but it's dark to community gets she was down. Um, we don't know what it's going on

right now. There's a Florida lawmaker named Chevron Jones. He's Bahamian and he was able to contact a cousin who was actually part of the search and rescue effort. He actually posted the phone call, he recorded it and put it on Twitter. Search and rescue is still going on with trying to still trying to account for for folks,

for families. Um, we're just the airplanes that are going in and carrying you know, food and water and emergency supplies, you know, to keep you know, to keep them going, you know, while we get all of the people that really really need to get out of there out. So there's a lot of injured people. Um, we're just trying to you know, we're doing roachations right now getting them out, and you're exactly right. I think next week will be a better time. You know, at least the emergency effort

should have died down. But right now some of the first people going in are members of an urban search and rescue team that's based out of the city of Miami. The city dipping into its own resources, they'll pick up the tab for this project. He said. You know, the Bahamas is so close there, their neighbors, and they couldn't

really resist helping. When we see suffering, We've experienced it firsthand, and that in essence is frustrating for us, but we also recognize that the response is important, and we have to do whatever we can in order to support, especially a community that's so close to us now in Broward County, that's where Fort Lauderdale is, and other big cities like Parkland.

They're gonna take in a lot of these Bahamian people who now have nowhere else to go, and so you're bringing in adults, trying to find them housing and even jobs. Perhaps they're actually foreign citizens, so there's a whole set of issues there. Now. The school superintendent in Broward County, Robert Runs, says they're actually getting ready to take in some of the kids who are gonna need to learn reading, writing,

and arithmetic. I think we have a moral responsibility at this moment, given the fact that we have been spared the worst of the hurricane, to help our families, our friends that are in the Bahamas. But all that's part of the long term recovery. At the moment, it's still search and rescue a bote. Now there are supplies being brought to the islands by cruise ships. They're discouraging private boat owners from making the trip because well, really they

could just get in the way. The storm has kicked up so much debris caused so much new debris it actually shifts the sands, and they have to make sure port markers are accurate, and the port markers and Booey's that didn't get blown away have to be reset. So the Coast Guard wants private boats to stay out of the way unless they've gotten specific permission to go inside. So the recovery effort is just beginning. Lots and lots of money is going to be needed. So how do

we get here? Is this Hurricane Dorian all part of global warming or is it just a fluke. Well, it's the second year in a row we've had a landfall by a Category five hurricane. That's pretty rare. It's also the most powerful Cat five storm ever recorded in that part of the Atlantic, so it is a history making storm. Phil Klotzbock used to work with the late Dr William

Gray at Colorado State University. Actually hurricane experts, yes, based in Colorado, but they're hurricane experts and Phil and Phil is part of the team that releases one of those annual hurricane predictions like is it going to be busy this year, is in an active season? Etcetera, etcetera. You know, there are more of these forecasts coming out every year,

but Dr Gray started back in the nineteen eighties. Bill says these forecasts are important and they can help communities like the Bahamas no if it's going to be extra busy. You know, the thing we always say with all the seasonal forecast is it's, you know, our best estimate at any particular time of how active this season is going to be. But we can't say where the storms are going to go, and so obviously you just need to

be prepared the same for every hurricane season. You know, hopefully it won't be as bad as last year's was, but you know, even if we only get one significant hurricane all year, you know that that significant hurricane hits you, it's an active season for you. I usually interview Phil once or twice this season, and it's funny that he can recall numbers and dates and years and which storm and which letter and I can't remember lunch yesterday. You know,

it's funny. So Dr A like when we when we first met it, we just talking about baseball statistics, and remember he used to rattle off the stats of all the hurricane seasons and I was like, how does you know this stuff? But then once you will with it every day, you know, it just kind of becoming like it's like baseball stats, like you know, Ted Williams in four.

So we don't know how bad it really is. And the Bahamas yet, Yeah, there's been some helicopter footage that shows communities wiped out and that death toll is continuing to climb. But the cost of rebuilding is really unknown as the environmental impact is still being measured. We've seen video of oil tanks and chemical tanks just spilled open, so we don't know the damage it's being done on the water, in the water under the water, let alone the foliage that just looks like it's been ripped away

and we'll have to be replanted. So the cost of rebuilding all this is one thing. And then what do you rebuild? Do you make it like it was before it didn't look very hurricane improof then? And do we get more of these Cat five storms? And how should we make these things be sturdier for the future. And that's called mitigation. That an important point that we try to emphasize as you know, mitigation and trying to take proactive measures um because since we've seen huge increases in

damage um and yet we've seen no increasing landfalls. And that's just because we have more people and more stuff, which because what happened in the Bahamas really could have happened to Florida. The initial forecast, yes, that one the President drew the sharpie around allegedly. Uh that initial forecast did have Dorian coming right through Florida like a steam engine, right through the heart of Orlando over Labor Day weekend.

Imagine that all the tours and a Cat five storms storming and rolling overhead for days because it was a slow mover. Well, luckily that didn't happen. But the problem with mitigation is a big one. Those expensive high rises. Everybody wants to live on the coast, but no one wants to pay for it, especially insurance companies that seem to pay for it over and over and over again. And that bill somehow gets shifted down to the taxpayers through FEMA, which has to pay for it over and

over and over again. So the relief efforts are underway in Bahamas. It's gonna take a long time. It looks like Florida missed the worst of it. It will cost tens of millions of dollars to clean up all the damage along the whole Florida coastline. And we're still not sure of what the storm reports will be from the Carolinas, but they'll need to be cleaned up to and we're all gonna pitch in through tax dollars and through insurance premiums.

But that's the way the system works, because we'll also pay for it through our generous contributions charities, churches, and the human spirit. I'm Rory O'Neill.