FACILITY and ACCOMMODATIONS UPDATES:

Pelican Beach Villas in Marsh Harbour:  We have significant storm damage.  We will re-open for arrivals on November 20 with the first villa, and will be up to 3 villas by Christmas.  Contact Sam Oliver  (912) 654-3300 for additional information.

Abaco Towns by The Sea had significant damage, primarily to the rooms on the beachfront, facing the Sea of Abaco. Rebuilding efforts are proceeding rapidly. The hotel is temporarily closed and will reopen in mid December 1999.

BAHAMAS GOVERNMENT REPORTS - 1 October 1999: Please note that the FOLLOWING REPORT(S) have been provided to The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism directly by the manager and/or owner of each hotel or resort. In every instance the information has been provided in writing by the manager attesting to the status of his/her property. Where no such written documentation has been provided the status is recorded as "information pending". Updates are made on the basis of further written documentation combined with personal visit to the property to verify this information. Parts of northern and southern Abaco sustained extreme damage. The airports at Treasure Cay and Marsh harbour are open. Power is available in some locations and telephone service has been restored in a limited number of locations.

Conch Inn Resort and Marina, Marsh Harbour
The Conch Inn Resort sustained limited damage and will reopen November 1st, 1999.

D's Guest House, Marsh Harbour
D's Guest House sustained limited damage but is open to guests. All facilities are available.

Abaco Beach Resort, Marsh Harbour
The Abaco Beach Resort sustained some damage to the marina and restaurant but is open to work crews although not all facilities are available. The hotel will reopen to the general public on December 18th, 1999.

Lofty Fig Villas, Marsh Harbour
The Lofty Fig Villas sustained limited damage and will reopen on October 7th, 1999.

Marsh Harbour Airport Inn, Marsh Harbour
Marsh Harbour Airport Inn is open. All facilities are available to guests.

STORM DAMAGE, RELIEF AND REBUILDING REPORTS:

REPORT FROM DAVE and KATHY RALPH - PUBLISHERS OF The bi-monthly Abaconian newspaper (for Abaconian subscription information, please Click HERE):

September 16-22: Damage to the (entire Marsh Harbour) area is severe. However, I have to say quickly that it does not compare to Andrew on North Eleuthera or in Homestead. Everyone has damage, from just a few shingles off to major damage, roofs off or in a few instances house collapsed. The outlaying areas suffered worse. Even here in Marsh Harbour there was a lot of flooding. Abaco Wholesale lost one whole end of their building and several of the larger metal buildings have extensive damage, Solomon's lost their entire roof, Abaco Hardware lost roofing on one warehouse. Abaco Wholesale lost roofing on one end of the building, AID lost some roofing, etc. A lot of inventory was lost. It's difficult to find out about other areas of Abaco. There are no phones, no water and no electricity. By now the central part of town has electricity in areas. Of course, many of our businesses and private homes have large generators. Yesterday two gas stations were open and today hardware stores, one bank and Golden Harvest Supermarket were open. I think that is remarkable.

The ferries began service mid-day today even though their docks in Marsh Harbour are mostly destroyed.

All but one or two of the docks along Eastern Shores are entirely destroyed. Pizza Hut is beyond salvaging. Silbert Mills' FM Radio Abaco antenna snapped off at about 10 feet and the docks at his Admirals Yacht Haven are demolished.. Triple J Marina has ruined docks with many boats sunk or completely broken up. Royal Harbour subdivision (behind Sand Dollar Shop) has 3 large boats on land. We probably have much more dock and boat damage than elsewhere just because we have so many of each.

Casanova's house on Scotland Cay is in quite good shape. Two sliding glass doors blew in in one room filling it with salt and sand. We had just reshingled all the roofs and that was fortunate as the buildings probably would not have survived otherwise. But Scotland Cay on the ocean is a different story. Ann Patterson's house (not hers any more) is missing the ocean porch and the rest of the house is perched precariously over a precipice caused by the erosion of sand from underneath. The Mai Kai house is missing all the front and the dune has eroded underneath the rest. Shawver's is entirely gone. Several others are totaled.

We now have water to our house continually (just today) and with enough pressure that the toilets fill up. We finally got a shower this morning. It felt really good to get the salt out of my hair. Phones locally are working, within Marsh Harbour. Most of downtown is without power still. They are putting on sections which are the easiest to restore. And would you believe that just tonight they turned on the power to Pelican Shores up to our next door neighbor. Dave thinks we'll be a while as a pole is down at the end of the road. We'll ask tomorrow if we can run a drop cord and connect our refrigerator. So we are getting back to normal slowly.

The better quality roof shingles definitely did better through this storm. I was interested that most types of roofing had problems, even cement tile. The only one that didn't was a Bermuda roof made of overlapping marine plywood and there are not many of them.