Veneta Collins remembers clinging to her children for dear life as Hurricane Dorian pulverised the Bahamas. “I was scared for my two girls,” she says of Occalia, 14, and Katalia, aged two. “Katalia kept crying all the time. She was peeing herself and saying, ‘I’m scared, mommy, I’m scared.’ Occalia wanted to cry but didn’t know how.”

At the time Collins, 34, and her children were staying with family in Marsh Harbour, the biggest town in the Abaco Islands, and all survived. On Monday, Collins and her husband, Cameron, 41, a construction contractor, made an anxious 20-mile journey north to Treasure Cay, a luxury beach and golf resort, to see if their own home had survived.

Thousands of people have fled the affected islands since Hurricane Dorian struck a week ago, killing at least 43 people – a death toll expected to rise dramatically. The devastation in Marsh Harbour is so overwhelming that an observer might be tempted to call it not only a ghost town but a dead town. But some here, including the Collins family, are determined to tough it out and pick up the pieces, even as they face difficult questions such as: where will the children go to school?

A search and rescue dog takes a rest among the devastation in Marsh Harbour. Photograph: Zach Fagenson/Reuters

As they piled into a pickup truck with family members, a Bible on the dashboard, their journey through Marsh Harbour revealed a town smashed as if by a restless giant, with telegraph poles and trees flattened and boats, cars and trucks overturned like toys. Businesses such as the Healthy Way nutrition centre and Family Guardian insurance company were ruined. A paint store had its doors ripped off. “RIP” had been spray-painted on the wall.



Among the rubble there was the detritus of everyday life: a carpet, a cornflakes box, a guitar. A giant chunk of debris had sliced through a car windscreen. A truck’s steel side had been sheared off. A beautiful white boat named Leopard had been tossed ashore and lay crooked. A couple of diggers had begun the desultory work of clearing up but the task seemed impossibly daunting.

But what can we do? We have to live on, we have to hope it’s there Veneta Collins

Collins, a Jamaican who moved to Abaco in 2016, said: “It came with a tornado, lifting up stuff and throwing it all over the place. Nobody thought it would be like this. This is the worst storm we ever got. It was a first for all of us. My husband and his aunt were holding a bed base to the window but it burst open and they ran.”

Bracing herself for what she would find at her own home in Treasure Cay, Collins said: “We worked hard and there are valuables in our home to make ourselves comfortable. But what can we do? We have to live on, we have to hope it’s there.”

A man searches for belongings among debris in Marsh Harbour. Photograph: Loren Elliott/Reuters

Behind the wheel, her husband observed: “Concrete buildings got mangled up. It’s amazing. That’s the scaredest I’ve ever been.”

As they travelled north in bright sunshine, the family saw the Marsh Harbour healthcare centre and, across the road, a crematorium, both apparently intact. But Dorian had blown newly laid tarmac off a road and scattered it in fragments. A yellow school bus had been almost casually flipped over on to its side. And trees had been laid waste and made horizontal. Cameron added: “It was snapping those trees off like toothpicks.”

His aunt, Mary Albury, reflected on the three or four hours she spent in her hilltop home as the hurricane wrought havoc. She said: “I’m 54 years old and I’ve never seen a storm like that. A window blew out and I was terrified our roof was going to come off. We all had to go into a back room, which has a concrete roof. You could feel so much pressure in the house our ears were popping.”

Her husband’s electronics shop was less fortunate. “Some looters pulled off the security bars and water and mud went through. There was water up to the ceiling. He said it was like a washing machine: everything ruined.”

Only a handful of other business owners have stayed behind; a small airport is operating with malodorous rubbish piling up outside. Along with the biblical destruction against an idyllic Caribbean backdrop, what is striking about Abaco now is how few people and vehicles are on the streets. No one can quite be sure if the missing are dead or have been transported to safe harbours. Albury said: “People are now worried about disease and that’s why they left, but I think it’s pretty safe. A lot of people also left because they don’t have anywhere to stay.”

Vehicles are seen deposited on top of a ship stranded on land in the wake of Hurricane Dorian in Marsh Harbour. Photograph: Loren Elliott/Reuters

She echoed other residents in criticising the official response: “We haven’t really had any aid in Marsh Habour. The day after the hurricane, people were going to the food stores and looting – it was the only way to survive.

“The government’s been terrible. No water, no fuel. It could have been a lot better. I think they want to keep some of the money in Nassau [the capital of the Bahamas]. Fuel should have been one of the first things coming in and they just started today. I don’t know when we’ll ever get power or water. The government is so slow about everything.”

As the family approached Treasure Cay, they found the damage less severe than in Marsh Harbour.

Damaged boats and houses in a marina at Treasure Cay. Photograph: Marco Bello/Reuters

Even so, cables and fragments littered the streets, a golf buggy lay in a ditch, a fire engine had its front blown off and a golf course and tennis courts bore scars. A Sotheby’s estate agent was surrounded by debris. Albury commented: “It was beautiful up here. It’s pretty much ruined. But it can be rebuilt. A lot of rich people have homes here.”

At first, the Collinses could not get to their home, as the roads were blocked by fallen trees. They parked nearby and walked through rubble, unsure what they would find. “Cameron, the washer’s still there,” Veneta said, pointing to a washing machine lurking under a broken tree in the front yard. Cameron said: “The house is still standing!” He recalled that he had recently bought Veneta a big TV for $1,000. “It’s still there,” she said.

The house was relatively unscathed. “Oh, thank you, Jesus,” Veneta said.