This archive report was first published on 5 September 2019.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency on August 28, 2019, as Hurricane Dorian approached the state, urging residents to prepare with seven days' worth of supplies. The declaration came as Floridians scrambled to stock up on gasoline and bottled water, with the attorney general's office investigating hundreds of complaints of price gouging.
Despite President Trump's initial claims that the storm was heading towards Alabama, Hurricane Dorian had become a Category 4 storm over the Atlantic Ocean by Friday, September 6, 2019, with winds of 130 m.p.h. Mr. Trump later approved an emergency declaration for Florida.
Fortunately, Florida was largely spared the storm's wrath, but one resident lost their life while preparing for the storm. A 56-year-old man was knocked to the ground from a tree in an Orlando suburb on Monday, September 2, 2019, as he trimmed limbs with a chain saw.
Bahamians in Miami Lend a Hand ¶
The ties between Miami and the Bahamas are strong, with Bahamians settling in South Florida decades before Miami was born. This week, their descendants, many veterans of devastating hurricanes, gathered across South Florida to lend a hand to their battered nation.
"When we were desperate, people came to our rescue," said Charles Bethel, 68, a retired state juvenile justice administrator who lost his home in south Miami-Dade County to Hurricane Andrew in 1992. "The community pulled together. There was no sense of division. Now, we are doing the same."
[Bahamian descendants in Miami are helping the battered nation.] Miami owes its very beginnings to residents from the Bahamas, who worked in construction and agriculture, creating the city's infrastructure and teaching white settlers how to build with coral rock, till the soil and plant tropical fruit, said Marvin Dunn, a retired college professor who chronicled local history in his book "Black Miami in the Twentieth Century."
