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On the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Dorian’s catastrophic landfall in The Bahamas, one family’s intimate story lays bare the long-lasting psychological scars the Category 5 storm left on communities across Abaco and Grand Bahama.

Thirteen-year-old Brenden Dion Altidor was just six years old when Dorian’s 185mph sustained winds and catastrophic 18 to 23-foot storm surge tore through Abaco in late August 2019. Trapped by rapidly rising floodwaters alongside his stepfather Kailan “Kay” McIntosh, Brenden was placed in the safety of a tree by McIntosh, who left to rescue other stranded residents. He never returned, and is presumed to have died in the storm. Rescued hours later as floodwaters climbed around his perch, Brenden survived, but the trauma of that day has shaped his daily life in the years since.

Today, when rain falls over Abaco, Brenden reacts unlike most children his age. Where young people often gather at windows to watch storms, Brenden immediately closes every shutter and pulls all blinds tight, his father Mack Altidor shared in an interview with Tribune Media. This small but striking routine is just one visible reminder of the harm Dorian inflicted on survivors that continues seven years after the storm made landfall on September 1, 2019.

Dorian made history as the strongest hurricane to hit The Bahamas in modern recorded history. After slamming into Abaco as a Category 5 storm, the system slowed dramatically over the nation’s northwestern islands, leaving communities battered by destructive winds and devastating flooding for more than 48 straight hours. Official records confirm at least 70 people killed across Abaco and Grand Bahama, but the true toll remains incomplete: dozens of people were never found after the storm. Coroner’s inquests later declared 22 of the 35 reported missing people legally dead, but many families still wait for closure, unable to obtain death certificates for loved ones whose bodies were never recovered from the wreckage.

For the Altidor family, the storm’s legacy is layered with grief, gratitude, and healing. Mack Altidor, who lived in New Providence when Dorian struck, has never forgotten that McIntosh’s split-second decision to place Brenden in a tree saved his son’s life. “Even though he was my son’s stepdad, we had a relationship,” Altidor said. He has since grown close to McIntosh’s mother, and says he understands how deeply the lack of closure over her son’s disappearance has gutted her: “I really felt based on my conversation with her, that was killing her… so I think it affected them tremendously.”

Brenden, who continues to live in Abaco with his mother, also lost a cousin in the storm. While the family rarely talks openly about the disaster’s events, the psychological impact was severe enough that Altidor chose to hold his son back a year in school, allowing Brenden to attend a full year of trauma counseling. Today, Brenden is in eighth grade – a year behind where he would have been without the storm – but he is slowly putting the pieces of his childhood back together.

Altidor says he still grapples with what-ifs, recalling he urged Brenden’s mother to evacuate to higher ground the night before Dorian made landfall, after tracking forecasts that left him deeply uneasy. The family chose to shelter in place, a decision Altidor refuses to blame anyone for: “no one knows what’s going to happen,” he said, adding he will never let that lingering unease overshadow the sacrifice McIntosh made to save Brenden’s life.

Despite the lasting trauma, Altidor says Brenden is making progress. He has started a new school year, built new friendships, and increasingly lives like any other 13-year-old. “Some of his friends from his former school died, and it’s not something that they’re going to forget right now,” Altidor said. “But he’s coping. He’s doing new things, making new friends, and going like you know, like a normal kid.”

The Bahamian creative and business community is grappling with sudden, devastating loss after renowned artist and entrepreneur Stefan Davis — known professionally as Stefan Legend — lost his life in a violent three-car crash in Miami-Dade, triggered by a suspect fleeing law enforcement. The tragedy unfolded on a Wednesday night, just three days before what would have been Davis’ September 6 birthday. Davis, a father of two and the founder of the iconic Bahamian brand Airbrush Junkies, was in South Florida for a celebratory birthday trip when the incident occurred.

Shortly before the collision, Davis shared a seemingly mundane post to his Instagram feed: a photograph capturing the steering wheel and dashboard of the vehicle he was riding in. That quiet, unassuming update would become one of his final public communications before his life was cut short.

According to reporting from Local 10 News, the chain of events that led to Davis’ death began when Miami-Dade police pulled over 21-year-old Lewis Manuel Perez, who was actively wanted on a military desertion warrant. Rather than comply with the stop, Perez allegedly accelerated away from officers, turning onto a dead-end street in his attempt to evade capture. In his frantic flight, Perez ran a stop sign, colliding head-on with the vehicle carrying Davis before sliding into an unmarked Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office car. Perez survived the crash and was taken into custody immediately following the incident.

News of Davis’ sudden death sent shockwaves across The Bahamas on Thursday, sparking an outpouring of tributes from every corner of national life, spanning politics, the Junkanoo cultural community, artistic circles, and the business sector.

For generations of Bahamians who came of age in the early 2000s, Davis was synonymous with Airbrush Junkies, his groundbreaking creative venture based at the Mall at Marathon. Davis revolutionized airbrush art in the country, turning plain T-shirts and everyday apparel into customizable, wearable works of art. He turned the craft into a defining form of self-expression for young Bahamians, growing his small startup into a household name across the archipelago.

His creative reach extended far beyond custom clothing. Davis earned acclaim for his dynamic live painting performances, created custom artwork for A-list celebrities, and contributed his talents to major concerts, community celebrations, and large-scale entertainment events across the country. His work gained national and international recognition: it was featured in the iconic New York-based hip-hop publication The Source Magazine, and he landed high-profile local commissions, including creating designs for the first phase of the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island and the annual Christmas display at the Mall at Marathon.

Beyond his own commercial and creative success, Davis dedicated significant time and energy to lifting up the next generation of Bahamian artists and entrepreneurs. That commitment to mentorship was highlighted by political and community leaders in their tributes following his death.

Michael Pintard, leader of the Free National Movement, called Davis “one of its true originals” and noted that The Bahamas had lost a local hero, dedicated professional, and beloved mentor. “What stood out most about Stefan was that he never stopped reaching back,” Pintard said, emphasizing that even as Davis’ work gained national acclaim, he remained focused on passing his knowledge and skills to young Bahamians. Pintard added that the country’s small business, creative, and emerging artist communities had lost “a mentor and a trailblazer.”

Leslia Brice, the Bahamas’ Minister of Culture, also expressed profound shock at Davis’ passing, noting that she had known him her entire life and collaborated with him on dozens of projects across multiple creative sectors. “When you’ve known someone your entire life, shared countless memories, and had the privilege of working together on so many projects and across so many creative spaces, a loss like this is almost impossible to process,” Brice said. She described Davis as far more than just a creative talent, adding that his unique vision, relentless passion, and lasting contributions would live on through the people and spaces he touched.

Junkanoo groups across the country — including the Valley Boys, Saxons Superstars, and One Family — also shared tributes to Davis, who had deep lifelong roots in the Junkanoo community. His family home on Taylor Street sat directly adjacent to the One Family Junkanoo Shack, where he was a constant, familiar presence for decades.

For many Bahamians who grew up visiting the Mall at Marathon and watching Airbrush Junkies grow into a core part of the country’s youth and entertainment culture, the loss hits particularly close to home. Davis built a thriving business from his raw creative talent, all while opening doors for other emerging creators to build their own careers. He is survived by his immediate family, including his two children, as friends, colleagues, and the wider national creative community continue to mourn his unexpected passing.

For hundreds of residents across western New Providence, another sweltering summer day unfolded without access to consistent, reliable electricity on Wednesday, marking the second straight day of crippling service disruptions that have tested patience and exposed long-running flaws in the Bahamas’ national power grid. Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), the country’s primary electricity provider, has continued to grapple with cascading outages throughout what has already been an uncommonly punishing hot season.

Local representative Michela Barnett-Ellis, Member of Parliament for the Killarney constituency, detailed the uneven scope of the blackouts: many neighbourhoods lost power shortly after midday and did not see service restored until between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, three high-impact areas — Balmoral, Sanford Drive, and Seaview — remained entirely cut off from the grid. Barnett-Ellis described the widespread frustration among her constituents, noting that the unrelenting heat compounded every inconvenience. For local small businesses without backup generator capacity, the two-day shutdown has meant a total loss of revenue, she added.

In its initial public statement, BPL did not share a root cause for Wednesday’s outages, only confirming that crews were dispatched to repair a damaged voltage line impacting Balmoral, Sanford Drive and surrounding communities. The utility originally projected service would be restored by noon, but that timeline was pushed back repeatedly. Barnett-Ellis added that some neighbourhoods only saw power return for roughly 10 minutes before another disruption knocked service out again, saying, “I’ve been calling BPL to try and get some sort of an update, all the while I can’t charge my phone so these last two days. This week has been an interesting week.” The MP has formally called for financial compensation for all residential and commercial customers impacted by the extended outages.

By late Wednesday afternoon, BPL confirmed power had been restored to Cable Beach, Skyline Lakes, Prospect Ridge and adjacent neighbourhoods after 6 p.m. But this latest wave of disruptions is far from an isolated incident: the archipelago has faced months of repeated blackouts, scheduled load shedding, and growing public anger over the grid’s systemic inability to meet summer demand. Just this week alone, outages tied to tripped feeders and other operational errors impacted areas including Cable Beach, Coral Harbour, Old Fort Bay, and portions of Stapleton Gardens, Millennium Gardens and Fort Charlotte. Service disruptions have also been reported across multiple Out Island communities in Andros, Abaco and Bimini.

For many residents, the ongoing crisis has upended daily life. Some have been forced to sleep in their cars to escape oppressive indoor heat, while countless families have thrown out entire refrigerators full of spoiled food. Many households have spent hundreds of dollars on generator fuel to maintain basic power, creating an unplanned financial strain for low-income communities. Barnett-Ellis emphasized that the repeated failures are clear proof BPL failed to adequately prepare for peak summer energy demand, warning that prolonged outages threaten to do lasting damage to the local economy, particularly for tourism-dependent small businesses.

BPL leaders have pushed back somewhat, attributing the strain to three overlapping factors: record-breaking electricity consumption, unseasonably extreme heat, and a decades-old ageing infrastructure that was not built to handle current demand. Energy Minister JoBeth Coleby-Davis confirmed this week that government officials are preparing a full performance review of BPL to present to the Cabinet, acknowledging that BPL, the Bahamas Grid Company, and the ruling Davis administration all underestimated how severely uncommonly high temperatures would stress the system. “We didn’t expect it to be as bad,” she admitted.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Philip “Brave” Davis struck a similar tone in a national address to the country, conceding that he cannot promise an immediate end to the persistent outages. He outlined that failed generation hardware and network equipment will be repaired or replaced incrementally over the coming months, leaving residents to prepare for more potential disruptions as the summer heat wave continues.