分类： society

A days-long search for a 27-year-old missing Bahamian man concluded in heartbreaking tragedy Thursday evening, after one of his family members located his body in the Hacio Point Close neighborhood. The deceased man was later identified by close relatives as Antonio Cartwright. Cartwright was last seen by associates around 8:30 a.m. on July 19 at the CBS Bahamas location in Southwest Plaza, according to a missing person alert circulated publicly by his family on Tuesday. Local law enforcement confirmed officers received a report of an unresponsive individual shortly before 8 p.m. Thursday, who was pronounced dead at the scene. Those who knew Cartwright have remembered him as a diligent, warm-hearted young man with a deep passion for house painting, who threw himself fully into his professional work. On Friday, CBS Bahamas, Cartwright’s employer, released an official statement extending its deepest sympathies to his loved ones. “Although Antonio had only recently joined the CBS Bahamas family, he quickly made a positive impression on both colleagues and customers alike,” the company said. “Many of our regular shoppers would recognize Antonio from our Paint Center, where he played an integral role in delivering expert guidance and high-quality service to everyone who walked through our doors. He was a joy to work alongside, and just recently, he was honored with our Employee of the Quarter award.” In the days between Cartwright being reported missing and his body being found, CBS Bahamas actively collaborated with his family to coordinate search efforts. The company supported the search by distributing missing person flyers, sharing information about his disappearance across its social media platforms, and reaching out to other businesses located along the route Cartwright typically took to travel home, all in an effort to gather any clues that could help locate him safely. Authorities have announced that a full post-mortem examination will be carried out to establish the exact cause of Cartwright’s death.

A wave of collective sorrow washed over Cat Island this weekend, as hundreds of mourners gathered to lay to rest two young women whose ambition and academic excellence had made them beloved pillars of their tight-knit community. Stania Webb and Diamond Stubbs, both victims of the deadliest traffic accident The Bahamas has seen in at least 20 years, were buried side by side at Smith’s Bay Public Cemetery on Saturday, almost one month after the fatal June 28 crash on Shirley Street that claimed five lives total.\n\nThe tragedy also took the lives of 18-year-old Bertrica Brown, 19-year-old Evalena “Lilly” Johnson, and 19-year-old Keno Gordon Jr. All five were teenagers travelling in a Mazda sedan when the vehicle collided with a tree near the Shirley and Church Streets intersection shortly before 2 a.m. on June 28. Nineteen-year-old Marcus Thacker Jr, the driver, has since been charged with five counts of vehicular manslaughter, with prosecutors alleging he operated the vehicle in a dangerous manner leading up to the crash.\n\nThe grieving process for Webb and Stubbs began a day earlier, on Friday, when their remains were flown back to Cat Island to be received by heartbroken relatives and neighbors. Stania’s casket arrived first: her father Stanley Webb, the girl’s only parent on the island, walked out to meet the aircraft to help guide his only daughter’s body into the waiting hearse. When Diamond’s remains arrived moments later, uncontrolled sobs and cries of anguish erupted through the gathered crowd. “Look at my baby come back to Cat Island like this,” one mourner screamed, a raw expression of the pain that hung over the entire community.\n\nMourners gathered Saturday for a joint funeral, dressing in blue and green to match the colors of Diamond’s and Stania’s caskets respectively. Many family members struggled to get through their tributes, overwhelmed by the sudden loss of two lives cut down just as they were poised to begin their adult journeys. At the opening of the service, Stanley Webb was so overcome with grief that he needed assistance to reach his seat, but he soon gathered himself to address the congregation about the daughter he adored.\n\n“This is my only daughter. My only daughter,” Webb told the crowd. “I tell you, I love this little girl. Her mother said, ‘You have to be spoiled.’ I said she’s not really spoiled, she’s spoiled and she’s rotten.” He described the permanent, devastating hole her death has left in his family, saying, “I’m gonna miss this lovely young lady so much. They take a part of me. I’m hurting deep within.” He also extended his grief to all five families affected by the crash, noting, “We lost five beautiful little ones, darlings.”\n\nEven amid his pain, Webb shared that he had found small comfort in the outpouring of unity from Cat Island residents, who have rallied around the bereaved families in the weeks since the crash. “I tell my family in the group chat, I say I’m going to be as strong as Stanley can be,” he said. “I said the chain is only as strong as the weakest link. I am grateful for everything. All of my friends in Cat Island, we came together so united. It kind of freaked me out a little. We stand together in love and unity.”\n\nStania was a second-year student at Langston University in Oklahoma, where she studied music with a minor in law and performed as a saxophonist in the university’s marching band. Her brother honored her by playing the final music project she had completed before her death, a bittersweet tribute to her artistic passion. Diamond, by contrast, had only graduated as valedictorian and head girl of Cat Island’s Old Bight High School two weeks before the crash, and was preparing to join Stania at Langston University this coming semester. Officials from Langston presented a joint tribute to both young women at the funeral, announcing that the entire upcoming academic year would be dedicated to their memory.\n\nDiamond’s aunt shared a recording of her niece’s valedictory address, letting the congregation hear the teen’s voice one last time. Her words of perseverance, originally delivered to her graduating class, carried a devastating new weight for the mourners: “Standing here today as your valedictorian, I won’t lie, this means everything to me — not because my journey was perfect, but because it was worth it. The truth is, it was hard. There were times people called me out, times when I heard the whispers. So instead of breaking, I built myself. I pushed hard and prayed hard. When people were talking, I got quiet and got close to God. I stayed rooted in faith when things didn’t make sense, rooted in purpose when I felt lost and rooted in strength when I felt weak. This is why I can stand here today — not because everything was perfect, but because I didn’t give up.”\n\nShe had reminded her classmates that graduation was never just about grades or accolades, but about the growth that comes from overcoming hardship together. “Some of us had battles nobody saw. Some of us carried weight no one talked about, but we made it together,” she said in the recording. “We laughed together and leaned on each other when things got heavy. There were days we cared for one another, and that’s something I will never forget. This wasn’t just a journey; it was our journey.”\n\nBahamas Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis also spoke at the service, reflecting on the potential the two women held and the future that was stolen from them by the crash. A family representative for the pair noted that Stania and Diamond had long carried the hopes and pride of their entire community, serving as examples for Cat Island’s young people of what discipline, faith and education can achieve. “We grieve for the graduations, the birthdays, careers, marriages and family celebrations that should have followed,” the representative said.\n\nFormer teachers and family friends shared their own memories of the two teens, painting a picture of bright, kind young women who excelled in their studies and lifted up those around them. Bradley Dorsett, Diamond’s godfather, remembered her as a hardworking teen who had spent several weeks working at his wash house just weeks before the crash. Dr Bennique Brown-Pratt, principal of Old Bight High School, recalled that Stania was part of the first seventh-grade class she taught after joining the school in 2018. Though naturally reserved, Stania placed in the top three at a national public-speaking competition, a testament to her quiet determination. Of Diamond, Brown-Pratt said the teen was a gentle, unassuming, and dependable student who participated enthusiastically in every school activity. “You know how people fabricate those qualities for those references for other persons,” she said. “I didn’t have to. Everything written about her came to my heart because it was genuine.”\n\nBrown-Pratt added that the pair’s deaths have left a permanent gap at the school they once attended. “The loss of these two ladies is an immense one. Not only did they leave, but their physical diplomas — they left an ink mark in the hearts and halls of Old Bight High. Love never graduates; therefore, they will revere us as we navigate life without them.”\n\nA marching band escorted the two caskets to Smith’s Bay Public Cemetery for burial, where family members surrounded the plots to lay flowers and say their final goodbyes. As workers sealed Diamond’s tomb, a child’s cry cut through the quiet grief of the gathering: “That’s my sister. No.”’

Over the weekend, communities across two major Bahamian islands — Abaco and New Providence — were thrown into chaos by a series of prolonged, repeated power outages that upended daily life, shuttered local businesses, and reignited long-simmering public anger over the inconsistent service provided by Bahamas Power and Light (BPL).

For Abaco residents, the latest wave of disruptions began as early as midweek, with one outage stretching to an 18-hour stretch of darkness. Across the country’s most populous island, New Providence, intermittent power cuts continued from Friday through the end of the weekend, with BPL attributing the issues to a perfect storm of natural and infrastructure failures: lightning strikes, damaged high-voltage cables, faulty transformers, degraded equipment, and crippling strain on the grid from excessive energy demand.

Chantelle Sands, president of the Abaco Chamber of Commerce, described Thursday as one of the most devastating days for local commerce, with extended blackouts halting normal operations across the island. “Businesses that do not have backup generators are at an even greater disadvantage,” she explained. “When power fails, many are forced to close entirely, lose critical daily sales, and face the risk of losing entire inventories of refrigerated and frozen goods. Reliable power is not a luxury — it is a foundational requirement for keeping businesses open, protecting jobs, and sustaining the country’s economic momentum.”

BPL officials have confirmed a string of separate failures across Abaco between Wednesday and Saturday. The issues started Wednesday with a sudden power surge at the Marsh Harbour Power Station that cut service to Murphy Town, Dundas Town and Forest Drive, which was restored shortly after. That same day, repairs to a damaged high-voltage cable in South Scotland Cay caused a second temporary outage for local residents.

The most serious breakdown hit the Wilson City Power Station just after 1 p.m. Thursday, when one of the facility’s primary generating units unexpectedly tripped offline, cutting power to all of Central and South Abaco as well as the surrounding cays. According to Marvin Green, BPL’s Northern Regional Manager, this type of failure would typically take between 45 minutes and 90 minutes to resolve, but unforeseen additional complications dramatically slowed restoration efforts.

Technicians eventually managed to restart the generating unit, but power only remained active for roughly 20 minutes before a second failure forced the entire station offline. Green explained that much of the repair work focused on the plant’s critical uninterruptible power supply system, which supports the station’s automated operations. After crews resolved that issue and restarted the engine, the station’s main transformer tripped, triggering yet another full blackout.

Additional outages continued to plague Central and South Abaco and Guana Cay on Friday and Saturday, each tied to separate new infrastructure issues. For residents and business owners, these repeated disruptions are not an unexpected one-off event — they are the latest chapter in a years-long crisis that has raised daily stress and added unplanned costs across the islands.

Sands shared one particularly striking example of the chaos: a local business that had its generator transfer switch damaged by BPL technicians, leaving the company completely without power even when it had planned for backup. While many business owners have invested thousands in private generators to keep operations running, Sands noted that the recurring costs of fuel and maintenance eat into already razor-thin profit margins for local companies.

To address the long-term crisis, Sands is calling on local businesses to invest in solar energy infrastructure where feasible, and is urging the Bahamian government to eliminate import duties and value-added tax on renewable energy systems. She argued that lower upfront costs for renewable systems would encourage more widespread adoption, reduce strain on BPL’s overburdened grid, and strengthen the country’s overall energy security.

Abaco resident Roscoe Thompson, who endured one 18-hour outage, said the problem has persisted since Hurricane Dorian hit the islands, and successive political administrations have failed to deliver on promises to fix the grid. “This isn’t an issue that just popped up out of nowhere,” he said. “Every new administration promises things will change, but when summer rolls around with higher demand, we end up right back where we were last year.” He added that the outages hurt not just local residents, but also the country’s critical tourism industry: without power, credit card machines do not work, and businesses cannot open at all for visitors.

Another Abaco resident, Danny Sawyer, recalled an outage that started between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. one day last week, with power restored to some neighborhoods by 3 a.m. the next day, while others waited until 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. to get service back. Outage lengths vary wildly, he said, ranging from two or three hours to more than six, and any severe thunderstorm with lightning typically prompts BPL to shut down power stations as a safety precaution. For residents without backup power, extended outages in the Bahamian heat become unbearable — Sawyer recalled one friend who was forced to sleep in his car to escape the high temperatures. Even for those who have portable generators, the cost is prohibitive, he said, with gasoline selling for roughly $8 per gallon.

On New Providence, residents also faced days of repeated, intermittent outages, with BPL confirming that lightning strikes, cable faults, damaged transformers, broken equipment, and high demand affected communities across the island. Crews worked around the clock to complete repairs and gradually restore service, but frustrated residents took to social media to vent about the frequency and duration of the cuts. One Facebook user reported going seven hours and counting without power by Sunday, while another complained that power had fluctuated on and off five times, putting household appliances at risk of permanent damage from irregular voltage.

Eastern New Providence was among the hardest hit areas over the weekend. Rosemary Sands, a resident of Joe Farrington Road, said her power was cut from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday, following a shorter outage the day before. “We are annoyed but we’re used to this thing now,” she said. “It feels like we’re living in a third world country, dealing with these constant outages.” Still, she added that she believes BPL crews are doing the best they can with aging infrastructure.

For small service businesses that rely entirely on electricity to operate, the outages create persistent financial and operational strain. Shanice Carey, owner of True Beauty Salon in New Providence, explained that every service her business offers depends on power — from hood dryers and heated styling tools to hot water and air conditioning. When power goes out, all work stops, pre-scheduled appointments have to be rescheduled, and sensitive salon equipment is put at risk of damage. “Frequent power outages disrupt client schedules, strain our equipment, and create significant unexpected operational costs,” Carey said. “While we do everything possible to adapt and minimize the impact on our clients’ experience, persistent outages place a heavy burden on our salon when trying to provide quality, efficient service.”