标签： Bahamas

The tight-knit coastal community of West End on Grand Bahama is gathering to mourn the passing of Keith Cooper, a trailblazing local eco-tourism entrepreneur and lifelong community champion who introduced thousands of people to the rich underwater biodiversity of the region’s waters. Cooper, the 69-year-old founder of West End Ecology Tours, collapsed and passed away unexpectedly on Sunday, August 2.

A native of West End, Cooper launched his eco-tourism venture in 2010 after returning to his hometown more than 20 years earlier following time living abroad. He quickly built a reputation as a trusted guide, leading hundreds of excursions to the iconic Sandy Cay that gave visitors the rare opportunity to interact safely with wild stingrays, while learning firsthand about the area’s shark populations, native fish species, and the delicate interconnected marine ecosystem that supports the island’s coast.

Kingsley Smith, the Member of Parliament for West Grand Bahama, emphasized that Cooper’s legacy stretches far beyond his successful tourism business. In the years after his return to West End, Smith said, Cooper poured his energy into lifting up the next generation of local young people, creating accessible outdoor programs that taught core skills like swimming and fishing, before expanding to add sailing opportunities. “It was something new for the community, and many young people benefited from his programme,” Smith noted.

Cooper’s tours also reshaped West End’s tourism landscape, drawing travelers who otherwise would have only visited the area’s popular nightlife into the heart of the village to experience its unspoiled natural beauty. Most recently, he had expanded his local footprint by venturing into the restaurant industry: he purchased the former Coffee on the Bay property, renovated the space, and launched Conchshells, a new eatery designed to give both residents and visitors an authentic taste of West End’s local culture and cuisine.

Joseph Darville, chairman of the Bahamian environmental advocacy group Save The Bays, shared that he joined Cooper on an excursion to Sandy Cay just two weeks before his death, to observe nurse sharks during their annual mating season. Darville said Cooper was enthusiastic and full of energy during the trip, updating him on the final renovations for his new restaurant and looking forward to its opening. “Keith Cooper had an intimate, almost divine knowledge of the ocean, the fish and everything connected to marine life,” Darville said, noting he had spent hundreds of hours exploring West End’s waters with Cooper over the years. “I learned a great deal from him. I always looked forward to spending time with him.”

Cooper also regularly partnered with environmental education programs, opening his tour sites to student groups who came to study marine ecosystems firsthand. He spent countless hours teaching visitors and students alike how to safely and respectfully interact with local marine life, Darville added.

Beyond his work in tourism and youth development, Cooper was also a critical support for West End in times of crisis. Following damaging hurricanes that have repeatedly impacted the Bahamas, Smith said Cooper leveraged his extensive network of international connections built through decades of tourism work to secure donations and emergency aid for local residents. “Any time there was a disaster, Keith used the many international contacts he had built over the years to help West End,” Smith explained. “People donated, and he always used his reach for the benefit of the community.”

Since news of Cooper’s death broke, tributes have flooded social media from current and former residents, past tour guests, and friends, many of whom highlighted the indelible mark he left on Grand Bahama’s identity and marine conservation work. Multiple commenters described his passing as a devastating loss for the community, noting that the island will never be the same without his leadership and passion. Both Smith and Darville extended formal condolences to Cooper’s family and loved ones, reflecting on the deep void his death leaves in the West End community. “He will be greatly missed,” Darville said.

A critical infrastructure failure has thrown daily life across Central Andros into disarray, after the Fresh Creek Bridge — the island’s primary north-south transport link — was officially condemned following the sinking of a key structural support that left the crossing dangerously unstable.

The structural failure, which local leaders say was years in the making due to unfulfilled replacement plans, triggered widespread disruptions: it has delayed critical electricity restoration work, cut off access to key government services, the island’s main airport, and major local employers, and forced residents and commuters to rely on makeshift boat travel while awaiting a temporary replacement.

Senior engineering officials with Bahamas’ Ministry of Works and Family Affairs confirmed that a post-failure visual inspection found one of the bridge’s intermediate piers had sunk, shifting the entire structure’s weight load to just two outer supports. The bridge’s pile cap tilted between 20 and 30 degrees, pulling three concrete bridge slabs downward with it. “This is a great concern. This is not the way the bridge was designed,” senior engineer Anthony Taylor said. “As a result, we have officially condemned the bridge. We are not allowing vehicular traffic to traverse the bridge at this particular time, and we are in the process of developing temporary solutions to address the matter.”

Central Andros District Administrator Jackson McIntosh noted that the collapse was not an unforeseen event. For years, successive local administrations had laid out concrete plans to replace the aging, deteriorating crossing, but none of those plans ever moved forward. “Mother Nature decided it was going to fast-track dealing with the situation,” he said. Officials have confirmed there will be no repairs to the existing structure, which also carries critical water and electricity utilities across the creek. Utility lines will be reconfigured, with a new water line potentially laid along the creek’s seabed, and the condemned bridge will be demolished once all regulatory and planning steps are complete.

A pre-fabricated temporary bridge has already been located in New York, but officials estimate it will take roughly two months to transport and install on Andros. In the interim, the government has moved quickly to launch a temporary ferry service that was scheduled to begin operations the day after the bridge’s closure, to help residents and workers cross the waterway. Authorities also allowed a two-hour window for residents and workers to cross the bridge one last time before shutting it down completely to all vehicle traffic.

The closure has already hit critical services hard. Bahamas Power and Light (BPL) announced that restoration work for ongoing outages in Cargill Creek and parts of South Andros has been put on hold, as crews cannot move heavy equipment and personnel across the creek. The utility explored alternative sea access routes but was unable to secure suitable vessels; it now expects the planned ferry service to allow work to resume. Beyond power restoration, the shutdown has blocked commuter access to the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Centre, a major local employer, and cut off residents’ access to the airport, government offices, and businesses located on the opposite side of Fresh Creek.

Works Minister Clay Sweeting confirmed that government officials, including local MP Leon Lundy and a team of technical experts, traveled to the site the morning after the failure was reported to assess the situation. The government has already entered into discussions with Acrow Bridge, a firm that previously provided temporary and permanent bridge infrastructure to Abaco and Eleuthera, to formalize the temporary crossing delivery.

Robert Mouzas, Director of Public Works, added that the temporary crossing has long been part of the broader permanent replacement plan. The new permanent bridge is designed to be a two-lane structure standing 16 to 20 feet higher than the original crossing, reducing flood and erosion risks.

Local community leaders and residents have described the disruption as a major blow to daily life. Dr. Dorinda Dean, president of the Central Andros Christian Council, called the closure “a great loss, great disappointment, great setback.” Dean, who lives in Andros Town but leads a congregation in Calabash Bay on the opposite side of the bridge, was forced to miss a youth ministry workshop at her church, an event that saw low attendance overall due to the crossing shutdown. Currently, residents must book separate taxis on each side of the creek and cross via small private boats, turning routine trips into complicated, costly outings. Commuters from Cargill Creek, Behring Point and Blanket Sound face daily barriers to reaching their workplaces, and multiple local businesses have reported lost revenue from restricted access.

Longtime South Andros resident Julian Gibson said erosion around the bridge’s supports had been a source of community concern for years. “If you see things getting rusty and starting to chip away and starting to fall apart, eventually, with trucks going back and forth, they could collapse,” he said. Gibson emphasized that the bridge served as the only reliable fixed route connecting northern and southern Andros, making its shutdown a far-reaching barrier to access for all essential services across the island.

A brutal dog attack on a young American child vacationing in the Bahamas has resulted in a one-year prison sentence for the Bimini-based canine owner, according to court proceedings. Harrington Rolle, 34, accepted full culpability for multiple offenses connected to the July 28 incident that left 9-year-old Beau Brattain of Florida covered in more than 100 bite wounds, requiring emergency medical intervention and multiple major surgeries.

Acting Chief Magistrate Ancella Evans handed down the combined sentences after reviewing graphic evidence of the attack, including photographs of Brattain’s severe injuries that the magistrate described as deeply disturbing. Rolle pled guilty to three separate charges: negligently inflicting grievous bodily harm, keeping a dangerous dog that caused harm to another person, and allowing a dangerous dog to roam freely in a public area. All three sentences will run concurrently, resulting in a total 12-month custodial term.

The attack unfolded around 10 a.m. on a public Bimini beach, where Brattain was collecting sand during a family holiday. Rolle’s six dogs escaped from their unsecured enclosure and assaulted the child, biting repeatedly across his face, head, arms and legs. The attack was only halted when an anonymous passerby stepped in to chase the pack away, potentially saving the young boy’s life.

Emergency first responders transported Brattain to a local Bimini clinic, but the severity of his injuries required an emergency airlift to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida for advanced care. Prosecutors confirmed the child has already undergone two surgeries, one of which lasted a full 10 hours, to address life-threatening damage. Court documentation noted large portions of tissue were torn away from Brattain’s arm during the assault.

During sentencing, Rolle appeared visibly distressed and took full responsibility for the incident. He told the court he had confined the six dogs in a storage shed, but acknowledged the lock on the structure was faulty and failed to keep the animals contained. When asked how he would have responded if the child had died from his injuries, Rolle admitted he had no defense and acknowledged his negligence was entirely at fault.

In the wake of the attack, Brattain’s family launched a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe to cover the overwhelming costs associated with the child’s care, including immediate medical bills, ongoing rehabilitation, travel for treatment, and other related recovery expenses. The family set an initial goal of $350,000, and by the time local media confirmed the sentencing on Thursday, more than $240,000 had already been raised from public donations.

Brattain’s family said in a statement that their sole focus for the coming weeks and months will be supporting the child through his recovery. “Alongside the overwhelming emotional toll, they are now facing significant medical expenses, travel costs and rehabilitation needs related to this tragic incident,” the statement read, adding that Brattain faces what the family describes as a “long and difficult road to recovery.” The case was prosecuted by Sergeant Vernon Pyfrom.

Widespread, prolonged power outages have plagued New Providence for weeks, leaving many residents without electricity for days at a time – and leaders of the Bahamas’ key energy providers say consumers should prepare for continued disruptions through the end of summer, driven by unforeseen record-high temperatures and decades-old infrastructure. Senior energy officials laid out the challenges facing the country’s power grid during a press conference hosted by the Office of the Prime Minister, outlining the multiple overlapping factors that have sparked the recent crisis.

Anthony Christie, chief operating officer of Bahamas Power and Light (BPL), told reporters that the utility cannot promise fewer outages over the coming weeks. After two to three months of above-average temperatures that have already pushed the grid beyond its planned capacity, meteorological forecasts call for even hotter conditions in August and September, which will send demand for air conditioning even higher.

While BPL conducts annual planning for peak summer energy demand, Christie said current temperatures and consumption levels were well outside projections. “Based on abnormal conditions, we’re seeing higher loads, higher temperatures and more frequent failures on equipment,” he explained. “So that’s now straining a lot of our resources that we did not really anticipate would be needed at this level.”

When pressed on whether BPL had failed to adequately prepare for summer demand, Christie rejected that claim, emphasizing the current crisis stems from entirely unforeseen conditions. Utility crews are working around the clock to reinforce grid infrastructure, reduce outage durations and minimize disruption for households, but Christie stressed that 100% uninterrupted power is not a realistic outcome. “They don’t want the light to never go off, but that’s not reality,” he said. “The light will go off. The power will go off. There will be an issue, a challenge that has to be addressed. But again, we’re trying to shorten the outages and lessen the impact.”

BPL Executive Chair Christina Alston echoed that defense of the utility’s preparation work, noting that no mechanical or electrical system delivers flawless, constant operation. “Saying that the system is going to be on 100 percent of the time, that is a very unrealistic goal,” she said. “No system is 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. Your car doesn’t work 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. Nothing mechanical or electrical works 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. But what we have done is systematically gone through and mitigated where we could see problems occurring.”

Alston described the Bahamas’ power network as one of the most complex in the Caribbean, and urged residential consumers to give providers flexibility by cutting back on unnecessary energy use through the remaining hot months. Officials clarified that this call is not asking residents to give up air conditioning or other home comforts – only to use energy mindfully.

Dareo McKenzie, chief executive officer of Bahamas Grid Company (BGC), which now manages New Providence’s transmission and distribution network under the government’s ongoing energy reform agenda, acknowledged public frustration but offered a lighthearted perspective on temporary outages: “Sometimes it may not be a bad thing. I go out and sit on the beach and enjoy what this beautiful island has to offer.” He quickly added that this personal take does not override the provider’s core commitment to consumers: “But to each his own, and it does not override our sacred responsibility to the consumers, which is to provide safe, reliable, and resilient service.”

McKenzie noted that New Providence’s grid faces consistent pressure from two daily peak demand periods, leaving the system almost no time to recover. BPL has already asked government agencies to cut energy consumption by reducing air conditioning use in public buildings, a step Alston said has already helped the provider restore power to more residential users and small businesses.

Alongside ageing infrastructure and abnormal heat, BGC is also grappling with persistent workforce challenges: the company struggles to recruit and retain skilled line workers. Currently, BGC only fields between 60 and 80 line workers to cover demand, though McKenzie said the company has taken steps to address the gap, including recruiting graduates from the Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute, advertising open roles, and hiring experienced former BPL staff, including retired workers.

The current grid challenges come as the Davis administration prioritizes broad energy sector reform. The government recently transferred responsibility for New Providence’s transmission and distribution network to BGC for long-term upgrading and maintenance, after originally structuring the partnership with Pike Corporation, a US firm whose Bahamian subsidiary Island Grid Solutions was set to be BGC’s majority shareholder – though Pike has since withdrawn from the arrangement.

A correction appended to the original reporting clarifies that McKenzie, not Christie, made the comments about enjoying the beach during outages, a mistake the original outlet apologized for.

A promising 18-year-old Bahamas resident with his whole future ahead of him has drowned in the South Beach Canal after ending up in the water alongside friends, leaving his heartbroken family grappling with inconsistent accounts of what led to the tragedy and struggling to come to terms with their loss. Ryan Alfred, an 18-year-old who could not swim, died on Friday after he and three companions were trapped by powerful currents near the canal’s sandbanks. His mother, 41-year-old Monique Alfred, says she is still unable to piece together the clear circumstances of her son’s death, with conflicting narratives emerging from witnesses about how he entered the water.

In an interview shared with local media, Monique Alfred emphasized that her son shared her inability to swim, and would never have intentionally entered deep water. “My son cannot swim just like me,” she explained. “He’ll go around the beach but he’s not going in the water because he can’t swim. Something ain’t adding up.” Conflicting witness statements have only deepened her confusion: one person told her Ryan had been unwilling to go into the water, while others offered entirely different versions of the fateful outing.

Official police accounts confirm that Alfred was in the water with a 17-year-old girl and two 19-year-old men when the entire group was suddenly caught in unexpectedly strong currents. One of the 19-year-old men told responding officers that he first saw the teenage girl in distress, pulled her to safety on shore, and turned back to rescue Alfred — but before he could reach him, a second powerful surge of current swept both men further out from shore. Alfred soon slipped beneath the surface and vanished before help could arrive.

Authorities were first alerted to the incident just after 7 p.m., launching an immediate multi-agency search operation that included local police and divers from the Royal Bahamas Defence Force. Divers eventually recovered Alfred’s body roughly 300 feet from the shoreline, and he was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency responders.

The family had begun growing worried hours before the official confirmation of his death, when repeated phone calls and text messages to Alfred went unanswered throughout the day. His father also attempted to contact him, before reaching out to one of Alfred’s sisters to ask if she had any information about his whereabouts. It was not until one of Alfred’s friends finally answered his phone that the family was told to rush immediately to the local police station, with the message that “something bad happened to Ryan.”

Monique Alfred recounted the chaotic, devastating moments after she received the news: “My daughter called and said ‘mummy, something wrong’. I didn’t have no ride and their daddy went there. I called him and he explained to me what happened. When I arrived at the station, police were already questioning my husband and Ryan’s friends, and at that point, they still hadn’t found his body.” Officers later returned from the recovery site to officially confirm the teen’s death, leaving his mother completely shattered. “The first thing I asked them ‘was my baby okay, Ryan okay’ and they said ‘no Ryan is dead’ and I said ‘what,’ and as a mother, I was at that station like crazy crying.”

Those who knew Alfred describe him as a quiet, kind-hearted young man who was deeply loved in his tight-knit Johnson Road community. A lover of video games, Alfred was a 2025 graduate of Doris Johnson High School who had recently taken the first steps toward building his adult life: he had just started a new job at local retailer Super Value, and was working as an apprentice welder under a local business owner in the St Anne’s area. For Monique Alfred, who raised three children on her own through significant financial hardship, her son was a steady, caring presence who always prioritized helping his family. Their last conversation before his death centered on his plan to use his first paycheck to buy new school supplies and new Clarks shoes for his 11-year-old younger sister. “He was saying, ‘Mummy, I gone help you with my 11-year-old sister because I know you’re not working,” Monique Alfred recalled. “I gon’ help you out and I think Clarks was on sale, and he was saying he’s gonna get the shoes. He’s like, ‘Mummy, what her size is and everything’.” After that conversation, Ryan left for work — it was the last time his mother would speak to him.

“My son was 18. He had plans. He wanted to help me take me on my situation,” his mother said, adding that Ryan’s father is also consumed by grief over the sudden loss. Alfred’s older sister Monica has been unable to eat or sleep since the tragedy, and says she is heartbroken she never got the chance to say goodbye. “I’m gonna miss the phone calls, the texting, the getting offs, the cracking jokes, the hugs, me being the annoying sister but I thank God for the 18 years he give us him,” she said. Like her mother, Monica also questioned how her brother, who disliked water and could not swim, ever ended up in the dangerous canal.

News of Alfred’s death has sparked an outpouring of tributes from across the local community on social media. Adrian White, the Member of Parliament for St Anne’s, remembered Alfred as a gentle, respectful young man who had his whole life ahead of him. “Despite not wanting to be in the water, Ryan found himself there. He has now gone on to heaven, leaving behind a grieving mother and two siblings,” White said. Senator Keno Wong also issued a statement of condolences, urging local residents to hold the Alfred family in their prayers during this impossible time.

As the family processes their grief and seeks answers about what exactly happened to Ryan, they are asking for community support to cover unexpected burial costs. Any member of the public wishing to contribute to the fund can contact Monique Alfred directly at 809-1474.

As grieving families and friends gathered over the weekend to lay to rest two of the five young victims of a fatal Shirley Street car collision, one family’s story of hardship, sacrifice and unbreakable sibling devotion has come to light.

Anthony Thompson, the older brother of 22-year-old Bertica Brown, opened up about the decades-long journey that saw him step into the role of both brother and father from his teenage years. When Brown was just two years old, she lost her father, and by the time she turned nine in 2015, the death of their mother left the pair orphaned. Thompson, then a homeless teenager, made the decision to take full guardianship of his little sister, raising her alongside his own wife and two young children in a makeshift shack in Abaco.

“When I received Trica, I was living in a shack,” Thompson shared in an emotional address during Saturday’s service. “But I didn’t let anybody know because I knew God’s journey.” Thompson described the overwhelming uncertainty he felt about raising a young child at such a young age, but threw himself fully into nurturing her growth and ambitions. When Brown developed an interest in throwing events for track and field, Thompson didn’t just support her from the sidelines — he coached her and even founded a local track club to give her space to practice. More than once, he went without meals to ensure his sister had enough to eat, a sacrifice that forced him to grow up far faster than any teenager should have to.

“There were times the brother in me wanted to let her do her own thing,” Thompson recalled. “Then the father in me would stand up and say, ‘No, I’ll give you every opportunity I possibly can.’”

Financial strain marked Brown’s entire childhood: for months at a time, Thompson could not cover the tuition for the private school he enrolled her in, and he dreamed of giving her travel opportunities that would help her secure a spot in college. Even amid these struggles, Brown never turned to rebellion; while she navigated the common growing pains of adolescent identity formation, she remained grounded and driven. Time and again, community sponsors stepped forward to cover her costs, a streak of good fortune Thompson attributes to divine favor.

Brown went on to graduate from Agape Christian School in Abaco, where she stood out as a star athlete in both volleyball and track and field. Before the crash that cut her life short, she had already earned multiple college scholarship offers. On Saturday, hundreds of mourners packed the Church of God Temple for her funeral, many wearing green in her honor, and loud wails of grief echoed through the sanctuary at multiple points during the service. Brown will be laid to rest in Abaco at a future date.

A separate funeral service was held the same weekend for 19-year-old Evalena Johnson, the second of the five crash victims to be honored, at Living Waters Kingdom Ministries. The three other victims — 17-year-old Diamond Stubbs, and 19-year-olds Stania Webb and Keno Gordon — have already been memorialized: a joint funeral was held for Stubbs and Webb on Cat Island last weekend, and Stubbs’ parents traveled to attend Brown’s service Saturday. Most of the eight people traveling in the vehicle the night of the crash had known each other since early childhood, adding another layer of heartbreak to the tragedy for their tight-knit community.

Thompson said he chose to share his family’s story after being moved by Stanley Webb’s tribute to his daughter Stania during the Cat Island service. Across all the services, tributes to Brown focused not on her athletic or academic achievements, but on the warmth of her character. Mourners remembered her as a kind, loving young woman with a generous spirit that made it impossible not to care for her. Bishop Denczil Rolle, who delivered the sermon at Brown’s funeral, recalled how Brown had once approached him directly to ask for university sponsorship. He told the congregation that her combination of frankness and respectful determination stuck with him, a perfect reflection of the drive that shaped her short life.