is the status of the island? what s operating and not working? good afternoon, morgan. and thank you, once again, for having us on your show, to allow us to let the world know what is happening in the northwestern region of the bahamas. as you said, i am in nassau, the capitol and it s business as usual. although on everyone s mind is the devastation that occurred in abaco and grand bahama. and i think al roker said it, he said it in ways that we didn t even know. 51 hours for hurricane dorian to sit over the bahamas, that explains so much and that explains the level of devastation, destruction and just the way those islands for most parts been wiped out. give me a sense, are you getting what you need? how is the coordination with the u.s. government been, for
probably just under 60% of our total gdp. and when we look at abaco and grand bahama, those are our second and third largest tourism centers as well as population centers. so in terms of visitor arrivals, grand bahama is sorry, abaco, especially, it was a dream. talk about sheer physical beauty, a boaters paradise because of all of the keys. for those two islands to be pretty much out of operation for the foreseeable future, it will have an impact. but if you would allow me to balance that with the fact that nassau is open, paradise island, which is our main the capital of the country, our main tourism destination. those islands are open.
people are asking how can they help. and we re asking people, please don t cancel your vacations if you re visiting one of those islands. because you re contributing to the economy and you re enabling us to help ourselves as well and help our fellow bahamians. this is going to have a big impact on people s lives, livelihoods, and on our economy generally. i understand just how important that tourism is to the caribbean economy. thank you so much for being with us. we really appreciate your time and our thoughts, our prayers, our hearts are with you and your people. also on the ground in nassau is msnbc, we ve been following residents there throughout the day. i ve been watching you on television all day. you ve been talking to residents who are detailing things, they re talking about the trauma, the devastation. how are those recovery operations going today?
hours, 41 of it over those northwestern islands. we ve had satellite images of upwards of 60 inches of rain falling on those islands. that s why you saw the devastation you saw. here it s a category two, but you can have catastrophic damage with those storms. these acan still do tremendous damage. we re not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination. one of our brightest minds. thank you so much. appreciate you being with us today. and joining me on the phone from nassau, bahamas, the director general of the bahamas ministry of tourism and aviation. i want to thank you so much for being with us by phone this afternoon. and just to start us off, what
hurricane dorian sat over the bahamas for 1 1/2 days pounding the northwestern islands for hours and hours on end. it first made landfall as a monster category five storm with a 23 foot storm surge and wind gusts topping 225 miles an hour. that s the same strength as a powerful tornado. this is what folks woke up to this morning in freeport. this woman in chest-high waters with two dogs. more than 60,000 people will food, clean drinking water and other aid according to the united nations. take a look at this. shepard: a live look at this is the second floor of a ft. lauderdale beach now. well south of the area that is home in freeport. you can see the waves splashing supposed to get storm surge. against the second florida ominous clouds there even with windows. flood waters coming up the people on the beach today, many likely trying to get waves out stairs. this is grand bahamas of this thing. hurricane dorian is pounding the international airport. under water. the tarmac looks like