Abaco resorts aggressively restoring properties after Irene
A team of tourism officials toured areas of Abaco on August 30, finding that Hurricane Irene affected resorts to varying degrees but being assured by all property owners that they would quickly recover from flood and wind damage.
Ronald Parker, general manager of the luxurious Abaco Club Ritz-Carlton in Cherokee Sound, said his crews were hard at work putting the property back in order.
“We are left with clean up,” he said. “During the hurricane, we got a lot of debris damage from landscaping, from some structural damage to some of our homes, to some of our common areas, to some of our buildings, from significant beach erosion down to our beach. So we have a lot of clean up to do.”
Tourism officials, including Tourism Director General David Johnson, Bahamas Hotel Association (BHA) President Stuart Bowe, BHA Executive Vice President Frank Comito and Bahamas Out Islands Promotion Board President Shavonne Darville, met several crews conducting landscaping and other restoration work at the club.
Mr. Parker pointed out that damage to the property was minimized because the hurricane came at a time of year when the resort scales back its operation. He believed his crews could repair damage quickly enough to reopen for October 20 as was scheduled before Irene.
“Fortunately, being closed, we were able to prevent a lot of further damage from happening by closing up the club prior to this particular hurricane,” Mr. Parker said. “We closed on August 20. The hurricane came through at on August 26. So we had already had a lot of plans in place to prevent further damage from anything coming through the months of scale back. It is an example of where we minimized our losses by being proactive.”
Properties such as Green Turtle Club that dealt with flooding during the hurricane plan to reopen on October 21 – their usual winter reopening.
Timothy Roberts, writer with The Abaconian newspaper, said he has seen minimal damage on Abaco.
“A few people lost shingles,” Mr. Roberts said. “Very seldom did we find houses that had pieces of roofs missing. No extensive damage. That’s the major thing.”
Mr. Roberts said generally electricity was restored to communities within two days of the hurricane’s passing. Water was restored in most places shortly after the electricity, he said.
