National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Director Captain Stephen Russell said NEMA’s challenge at this time is logistics and finding permanent shelters for victims.

“Right now we’re putting a strain on many of the infrastructure like churches and other properties. So, we have now repurposed those shelters, which can be used as community centers in the future,” Mr. Russell told The Bahama Journal yesterday. 

“Again, this major storm impacted two of our islands and all of the vehicular transportation has been impacted. So, to get to the lengths and breadth of those islands, you have to quickly get vehicles to the island to give us the mobility to offer relief to those on the island.”

He added that the agency is working on long term shelter options for persons displaced from their homes on those hurricane ravaged islands. 

Shelters have been set up across the capital as a means of temporary placement for evacuees with no place to go. 

The plan, he said, is to find permanent shelters in two months.

“There has to be sheltering in the absence of completely rebuilt homes. It has to be some other form of sheltering separate and apart from where they are now,” he said.

“It is our desire to get people back into the districts of Abaco because we know a number of persons who work in those communities need to get back to work to start the engine on those economies.”

However, he stressed that efforts to restore both islands may span for a very long time.