MARSH HARBOUR, the Bahamas — In the hours and days after Hurricane Dorian tore through the Bahamas’ Abaco Islands, the first government rescuers many residents saw were American. Coast Guard helicopters cut through the sky to evacuate the sick and wounded.

The distribution of emergency supplies of food, water and medicine has been mostly coordinated by an ad hoc network of volunteers from Bahamian and American nonprofit groups. But Abacos residents say their own government, whose resources were largely wiped out, has been notably absent in the six days since the Category 5 storm struck and killed at least 43 people.

Also, the Bahamas and other small island nations work through a regional organization, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, to coordinate emergency response and relief and their help is not always clearly visible to people struggling on the ground.

“It’s ridiculous. Ridiculous,” said Martin McCafferty, a contractor based here in Marsh Harbour, the biggest town on the Abaco Islands. “This is a catastrophe, and they should be here in numbers.”