Hurricane Dorian has left the Bahamas in tragedy after it hit the island last Sunday as a Category 5 storm with winds as fast as 185 mph.
The storm has claimed the lives of at least 46 people and thousands are still missing, including some of the relatives of Academy Award-winning actor Sidney Poitier.
According to the nephew of the acting legend, he has said that more than 23 members of his family are feared missing in the aftermath of hurricane Dorian.
Jeffrey Poitier, 66, said that as of Thursday there was still no news from the relatives, including his sister Barbara and his adult children in Freeport, Bahamas.
The The DailyMail reports:
Up to 70,000 people in the Bahamas are in need of ‘life-saving assistance’ while Great Abaco is said to be virtually uninhabitable, with bodies piled up and witnesses saying there is a ‘smell of death’ with corpses floating in the water.
Jeffrey said: ‘We still couldn’t find anyone, nor have we heard from them.
‘We are trying to reach out to them using every means available to us but we are not hearing anything. We are deeply worried.’
More than 500 Bahamians belong to the extended family of Sidney Poitier, the acclaimed actor who was born in Miami to Bahamian parents and who grew up in the Bahamas, according to Jeffrey Poitier.
Hurricane Dorian made landfall in the islands last Sunday. It caused mass destruction turning houses into matchsticks and damaging airports and a public hospital.
Jeffery Poitier, who is also an actor and who splits his time between New Orleans and Cat Island in the Bahamas, said that he had tried calling his sister repeatedly without an answer.
He hoped to fly to the Freeport area by helicopter later today to search for her himself.
‘It’s been very discouraging, very disappointing and very stressful for all of us here in the Americas. It is not easy having to wait for news to find out what happened to your family. I am very worried,’ he said.
Poitier said he would have to return to Nassau over the weekend for the planned funeral of another uncle, Reginald Poitier, a family patriarch who died last month in his late 90s.
‘We are all here to support one another in both tragedies,’ he said.
Another relative, Kimberly Poitier, said she had been searching for family members from her home in Tampa, Florida, and had sent out a group message hoping to account for relatives in the Bahamas.
She said she had gotten in touch with a family of cousins who had escaped by boat from flooding in Freeport, including a woman named Barbara. For a brief moment, the family tried to figure out whether that could be Jeffrey Poitier’s sister.
But after seeing a photo, Jeffery Poitier said in a text message that his sister was still unaccounted for.
‘It’s someone different,’ he said.
‘I am worried and waiting for news, any news will do for now. I need to know.’
We’re praying for a miracle and hoping that Mr. Poitiers family and other victims of this natural disaster are found alive.
