BATTLE CREEK, Mich. –
On Sept. 1, 2019, Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas as a Category 5 storm with wind gusts over 200 miles per hour and a storm surge more than 20 feet high. The storm pummeled the island nation for a full day, killing dozens – with hundreds more still missing – and causing billions in property damage.
Months later, debris remains widespread and some areas still do not have electricity. On Jan. 13, more than 300 national delegations, non-profits, corporations, companies and individuals attended a recovery conference there and pledged more than $1.5 billion in funding and in-kind services to help speed the nation’s rebuilding, according a release by the country’s government.
A few days before, on Jan. 10, the Defense Logistics Agency Disposition Services at Letterkenny site in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, continued the agency’s longtime support for humanitarian and disaster recovery donation of excess U.S. military equipment by loading up diesel generators bound for the hurricane-savaged nation.
The generators, originally valued at nearly $100,000 for the lot, will be distributed by the Bahamas’ National Emergency Management Agency, or NEMA, which intends to use them for general lighting and emergency electricity at local hospital clinics, water plants, shelters and emergency operation centers. The generators were requisitioned from DLA by the Miami-based non-profit agency Outreach Aid to the Americas, or OAA, and will be transported to the Bahamas for NEMA’s use. The OAA organization typically concentrates its efforts on vulnerable populations in Cuba, Central America and Caribbean nations through the donation of pre-packaged meals, hygiene kits, orthopedic shoes and disaster preparedness training. Like other humanitarian organizations, OAA receives authority to request and receive excess U.S. military property donations from DLA through the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“We are very grateful of receiving this donation and happy to be able to provide relief for those people in need,” said OAA Representative Irela Guevara.