Central Bahamas destroyed, San Sal Info and Air strip info

The entire island of San Salvador needs more than a hug right now

Where do I start!   As anyone who is in the boating industry knows, The central Bahamas were devastated by Hurricane Joaquin.
I started calling Michelle Williams from Riding Rock Marina when the hurricane force winds began battering the island a few days ago. Michelle Williams is one of the owners of Riding rock Marina on San Salvador. On the very first call to her, I asked if I could do anything. She said " be our point of contact stateside for after the storm. Many calls were made to Michelle over the first 50 hours of hurricane force winds. Each time she seemed a bit more shaken and rattled. By Thursday night at 6 pm I heard from her for the last time. At that point, the eye of the storm had been over them for a bit and the damages were bad. Every home on the island had received damage. Some as little as shingles gone, Some were missing roofs and some had been left destroyed.  She said at that point that there had been no injuries to her knowledge. But She also said to me that the second half of the eyewall was coming in fast.  Now what you have to realize is that the storm had battered the island with 80 to 100 mph winds for 50 hours, but most of those winds had been on the windward east side of the island. There are few homes on that side of the island. But with the storm finally making its north east turn after plodding around at 4-5 mph for days, it was now passing directly over the island of San Sal. As the eye passed, the winds would then have come from the west! This will have been the worst weather for them. The winds would now likely have gusted to 140mph straight onto the western shore and pushed an enormous storm surge into the island. After the Eye hit the island, there has been no communication with the island..............
All of Friday calls were attempted but to no avail. Facebook may be stupid or " the devil" in some peoples minds but it has been the best line of communication for everyone involved and worried about our friends on San Sal. The Salt water brotherhood began to come together.
On Saturday morning, I had someone say that someone should start a gofundme account. After all the statements on Facebook from folks asking what they can do to help, I figured I would give it a try. The response was overwhelming. By the afternoon, we received over 10,000 dollars in donations. I will be donating every bit of that money to Michelle Williams Church on the island. I figured the church will ensure that the people that need the money most will get it.
I also have been speaking with other boat owners with planes. Many are jumping on board with volunteering their planes to bring relief to the island. I am flying down to the island tomorrow on the boss's plane with 1800 lbs of supplies.
I also got a call yesterday from Adam Foster, the dock master at IGY marina Blue Haven. He put me in touch with a group called Yachtaid Global. I spoke to this wonderful organization last night. They basically find yachts that will donate their time to bring in supplies to the island and then they sit anchored off the island and make water for the island.  This is a wonderful thing. As I type this, they are working on getting a yacht down there. If anyone knows of any yachts that can volunteer their services please contact them. San Sal is not the only island that was devastated. Much moree help will be needed. Yachtaid also specializes in logistic. There are many of you that have asked what you can donate. Yachtaid has people that specialize in disaster relief logistics. ( such as getting the relief actually to the destination. )
The central bahamas will not be what we all remembered them to be for many years. I am hearing that Rum Cay was destroyed as well.  There is severe damages on Crooked island. Long island has catastrophic damages as well. As of yesterday 70 percent of long island was still underwater. There are also reports of deaths on long island. According to  Zelda Evens ( 242-359-3763 ) the manager of Odyssey  aviation in nassau informed me yesterday that the Airstrips at Stella Maris , Rum and and San sal are now open to flights from sun rise to sun set. Anyone that has a plane please make an effort to get relief to these islands. Also Zelda informed me that they are beginning to receive supplies on their tarmac and will be using helicopters to distribute those supplies to hard hit inaccesible parts of the islands.
Its time to come to the rescue of our friends on these islands. We have all been to these islands and reaped the bounty of the waters there but more importantly we have reaped the friendship of the people on these islands. Please donate what you can. here is the link that will get money to the Seventh day Adventist Church on the island.gofundme.com/qe54wxqs It will go to helping the less fortunate on the island.