Nancy Maass Kinnally| Special to The Palm Beach Post
On Dec. 11, 1937, Vernon Malone was born a stones throw from the waters edge, in a wooden house with no electricity and no refrigeration, tucked inside the mouth of Hope Town Harbour.
His father, Edward Malone, had floated the house over by boat from a company town called Wilson City just south of Marsh Harbour, Great Abaco, Bahamas, where it had housed employees of the recently defunct Bahamas Timber Company. He reassembled it to serve as a home where he and his wife could raise their family, which eventually included Vernon and six siblings.
As a young man, Vernon helped his father build a new house on the same land in the mid-1950s, all by hand. And he and his wife Barbara in turn raised their own family there, supported by the small business he launched in 1962, Vernons Grocery and Upper Crust Bakery, located just a block away, across the towns ball field.
On Sept. 1, 2019, after 81 years of living in the same spot, Vernon became something he never imagined he would be homeless.
Hurricane Dorian had shoved the ruins of three buildings including a house that had stood on Eagle Rock in the middle of the entrance to the harbor onto his.
My poor little house couldnt stand all that pressure from the wind and the water and all that debris, Vernon said.
All that remains of the house now is one wall, which includes a fireplace inside of which he now stores a few belongings Dorian spared.
Now 82, Vernon is back behind the register of his tiny grocery and bakery, where he and Barbara rode out the storm, while she stays with family in Boynton Beach waiting for a third Malone family home to rise on the little parcel near the harbor.
This time, Vernon wont be doing the building.
Vernons new home will be built by Hope Town United, a charity operated out of Delray Beach and run by eighth-generation Hope Town natives Brian Malone, who is Vernons son, and Frank Knowles, along with Matt Winslow, a second homeowner whose family has been the largest donor toward Hope Towns recovery from Dorian through their Sands Family Foundation.
The charity born in response to Dorians devastation has accomplished much in its first year, from evacuating 250 residents in the storms immediate aftermath to rebuilding two of the islands three public docks and its primary school, to developing a comprehensive plan to create a resilient, renewable energy grid and attracting investors to build it.
Homes for Hope, which will build homes for local families who lost theirs in the hurricane, is Hope Town Uniteds latest initiative.
Seneca Moss Reynolds of North Palm Beach is Hope Town Uniteds development director. She said the organization has raised about $3 million of the $8 million it needs for the restoration of the docks and school and the construction of the Abaco Community Care Center, as well as several more homes like Vernons.
But just as no one could have been prepared for a Cat 5 storm to park itself over the northern Bahamas for two days, no one could have predicted that a global pandemic would follow less than six months later, ultimately bringing international and even most inter-island travel to a halt.
In spite of Dorians 200-mph winds, 20-foot storm surge and more than a dozen tornadoes that spun off the eye wall, no one died during the hurricane on Elbow Cay, where the historic settlement of Hope Town is located. And so far, no one has died of the coronavirus, but the damage to the local, tourism-based economy from the one-two punch has been devastating.
Currently, only construction crews already on Elbow Cay can continue to rebuild, along with those locals who either stayed or returned before the Bahamas shut down.
Im hoping that very soon this pandemic will run its course and well be able to get started, because its no fun being homeless, said Vernon, who has bounced from family homes in Florida and Virginia to a West Palm Beach hotel to his brothers house, church property and two homes belonging to second homeowners in Hope Town.
Ive lived in seven different places since the hurricane, he said. The place I have now I have for a year, so hopefully well have something built by that time.
New homes will be as strong as concrete bomb shelters
Hope Town residents have always maintained the historic architectural character of the homes built by British Loyalists, including Vernons ancestor and original settler Wyannie Malone, who arrived on Elbow Cay in 1785, having left South Carolina in the wake of the American Revolution.
Vernons new one-story, one-bedroom house will be made of concrete with a Hardie board exterior resembling wood siding and a cedar shingle roof, so it will be hurricane-resistant while still retaining the historic look of the Loyalist cottages that have made Hope Town famous.
Garrett Graue, president of Delray-based Seagate Construction Group, is project manager for all of Hope Town Uniteds reconstruction projects.
He described the homes they will be building as like a concrete bomb shelter in terms of their strength, albeit much more attractive. On Vernons house, they will work to incorporate the wall and fireplace that are still standing, but the designs will otherwise be simple and somewhat standard, while keeping with the historical integrity of the settlement.
He has a crew beginning work on the harbors third public dock, and he expects the school to be complete by November.
Hope Town Primary School Principal Justin Higgs expects 40 to 50 of the schools 70 students to be back for the new school year, which begins Sept. 21 in the Bahamas, a few weeks behind the normal schedule due to COVID-19.
The rest have remained in Nassau or stayed virtually enrolled in the school they attended in the U.S., he said.
Most homes still dont have power
Vernon Malones power was turned on about six weeks ago, and hes one of the lucky ones.
Although the Bahamian utility, BPL, is providing limited power from generators connected to a partially reconstructed local power grid, most homes are so damaged, residents cant connect to it.
Its going to be a long time for some people, said Vernon, who had to replace all his homes boxes before he could plug in.
Hope Town used to get its power from a plant on Great Abaco via undersea cable, but that cable has yet to be restored. Hope Town Uniteds plan would keep Hope Town connected to the BPL grid, but supplement it with community-owned solar power and natural gas backup power, with the power lines being buried so they would not be susceptible to high winds.
We have a plan and we have investors, and were just waiting for permission from the Bahamian government to proceed, Brian Malone said.
Deb Patterson, who serves on the Hope Town District Council, is one of the many residents still living without power.
To take a shower I have to unplug an extension cord from one place and use it for the water pump, she said. I have no hot water. I havent had a hot shower in six months.
Pattersons bread and butter job is office administrator for the Elbow Reef Lighthouse Society, which is raising money to restore Hope Towns iconic, candy-striped lighthouse, which is vital to the community for its tourism value, but perhaps just as importantly, as a symbol of its perseverance.
Since July 3, shes been going without pay, and like many, living off of her savings and accepting food donations from IDEA Relief, as she toils to rebuild her island.
We started receiving a weekly box of food: a bag of rice, some grits, tuna, an apple or two, an orange or two, corned beef. If you literally had no money, in order to prevent starvation, this bag of food would probably keep a family of four alive, she said.
In spite of the daily struggles, her outlook has changed dramatically in the last year.
The day I left here, which was Sept. 8, I didnt think I would ever come back. I didnt think it was fixable. There was so much carnage, she said. There is so much hope now.
She discovered that the meaning of the name Dorian is gift, and she now sees an opportunity for Hope Town to emerge stronger.
I see us now rising better than before, wanting to build resiliently and with forethought.
HOW TO HELP
In addition to homes, docks and a school, Hope Town United is building Abaco Community Care Center, a private, community-based medical center, with partners Hope Town Rising and Flagler Health. Flagler Health, a St. Augustine-based hospital, has pledged to support the new medical facility, for which land has been donated by another family foundation.
Donations to Hope Town United can be made online at http://www.hopetownunited.org/donate or by contacting Seneca Moss Reynolds, director of development, at seneca@hopetownunited.org or (561) 313-5355.
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One year after Dorian: Restoring hope to the Bahamas - Palm Beach Post