The Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister, the Hon. Myles Laroda reported to Parliament on the assessments carried out after the passage of Tropical Storm Nicole. he spoke specifically to the number of people who had taken advantage of the available hurricane shelters.
“In Grand Bahama, there were eleven shelters that were activated. There were 118 people in those shelters. In Abaco, fifteen shelters were activated. There were a total of 841 individuals there. This count includes persons at two unofficial shelters namely: The New Haitian Mission Baptist Church and the new Haitian Baptist Church. Bimini there were two shelters that were activated and one person reported to that shelter. The total of 985 persons who registered at shelters in Grand Bahama, Abaco and Bimini.”
Minister Laroda also recently tabled a bill in the House that would cause for the merging of the National Emergency Management Agency and the Disaster Reconstruction Authority. “Moving forward we want to have an agency that will be much agile and be a twelve month agency that this time next year hopefully we’ll have an agency that will be moving and not just pulling agencies together but have individuals that are 24/7 to deal with these matters.”
