On September 1, 2019, the Islands of the  Bahamas were hit by the worst hurricane ever. Winds at 300 km / hr. Two of the main islands were leveled  to the ground.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Dorian

The Bahamas are an archipelago of 700 islands of which only 14 are inhabited. They are situated in a large area just east of Florida. It is a wonderful place. For the unspoiled nature, the crystal clear water and the very hospitable people. Why am I saying this? Because it is the country of my wife,  who is originally from the island of Eleuthera.

The word Bahamas immediately evokes, in ill-thinkers, ideas of shady trafficking of speculative financiers. This reality also exists. Offshore banks based in Nassau have become the protagonists of famous events. The banker Roberto Calvi had his house in Nassau and the branch of Banco Ambrosiano on this island as well. After his tragic death, his son Carlo stayed in that house for a long time, as Ferruccio Pinotti tells us in the excellent book Poteri Forti. I would like to communicate to the readers of my newsletter that I have absolutely  nothing to do with that world, in the most absolute way.

I understand that it is instinctive to make certain connections. Stereotype is a mental mechanism that solves the need to investigate.

So please remove any suspicion that this newsletter may somehow be something that is handled by a non-transparent person engaged in strange activities.

The reality linked to Offshore Banks, Trusts and asset management is practiced above all by legal entities of Swiss nationality. Basically, as far as banks are concerned, the Bahamas is like a Switzerland for Americans. It’s easier and closer to reach, by private plane, sailboat or  yacht. In addition to finance and being a tax haven, the Bahamas is still a nation like any other, with people  working and surviving from their honest work, such as tourism, fishing, agriculture and government jobs, including the tertiary sector.

Since 2014 I have been involved in the promotion of tourism not for profit, by starting a Facebook page called Andiamo Alle Bahamas, which I mainly wanted to be a source of useful information for fans of tropical sport fishing which is also a great passion of mine.

https://www.facebook.com/Bahama4Italia

Before the hurricane, in August 2019 I was in the Bahamas for my vacation, with my family and other friends. We were already working to develop new collaborative initiatives between our two beautiful nations, Italy and the Bahamas.

This is when we first met with the One Eleuthera Foundation,

https://oneeleuthera.org/

which deals with various solidarity projects including that of teaching trades to young people. Trades such as: bricklaying, plumbing, carpentry, electrical, solar panel installations, culinary etc. An initiative of great importance to give a profession to young people. Our idea was to create a contact point for cultural exchanges between students.

In 2007 I participated in a project together with the Department of Marine Biology  of Trieste pertaining to natural sea sponges. The experiment was carried out in synergy with the Cape Eleuthera Island School, an American school based in Eleuthera-Bahamas

http://www.islandschool.org/.

We are also looking into agreements with another Italian university, to spread the importance of  geological phases that actually started in  the Bahamas, with the phenomenon of oolites.

Also in August 2019, in Nassau I was able to meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hon. Darren Henfield and the Minister of Agriculture Hon. Michael Pintard (who also visited us in Florence in June 2019, while he was in Italy for the FAO) to develop projects of common benefit between Italy and the Bahamas.

A project of  artisan collaboration between the maestros of Torre del Greco, hired by me, and the marine resources department of the Bahamas, was already financed and ready to go.

Unfortunately, first the hurricane in September and then the coronavirus stopped these initiatives.

Hurricane Dorian hit the Bahamas with devastating power never before seen. A power and a mode so anomalous that it has caused suspicion that it could also have been  an event that is not entirely natural. We have already often observed meteorological or natural events that escape the laws of nature. The fires in California, certain earthquakes, including the one in Haiti, etc. When I was second lieutenant in the Air Force, based in Sicily, I heard with my own ears talks about "cloud seeding". It is not a secret. It is also on Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding.

So we can say without being accused of being conspiracy theorists that the weather is  subject to artificial modification.

No one can say for certain, whether in the case of  hurricane Dorian that hit the Bahamas, if it was an episode of climate warfare of the type described in this article from which I took a paragraph

https://www.disinformazione.it/guerreclimatiche.htm

“The renowned scientist Dr. Rosalie Bertell confirms that "US military scientists are working on climate systems as a potential weapon. Methods include increasing storms and the  diversion of rivers of vapor from the Earth's atmosphere to produce targeted droughts or floods [2]

Already in the 1970s the old National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski had predicted in his book "Between Two Epochs" that:

"... Technology will provide  leaders of major nations, techniques for waging a secret war, for which only a fraction of the special forces will be needed (...) Climate modification techniques could be employed to cause prolonged periods of drought or storm ... "

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn also talks about it in the story "The house of Matrjona"  and  Jaques Coustou mentions weather modifications in his well renown encyclopedia .

The Scopex project, which is rather worrisome,  speaks openly about climate changes, (although for now it seems to have been blocked):

Let's see what happened before the hurricane, in 2019? Is this perhaps what triggered the event that pissed off someone? I don't know and no one can say for certain. Except that the hurricane lingered over the Bahamas for two days and when it was scheduled to hit the coasts of the United States, it had already lost all of its destructive intensity because it was all  dumped on the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama. How can a hurricane traveling at 300km / hr come to a complete halt  for two days?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradthomas/2019/05/29/china-is-cashing-in-on-this-piece-of-paradise-just-40-miles-from-palm-beach/?sh=549af848188a

The article talks about investments of billions of dollars by China in the Bahamas in 2019. Billions of dollars arriving in a nation that has less than 400,000 inhabitants (equal to the population of Bologna). The Bahamas, which is without an American ambassador for 8 years. A country that is therefore diplomatically abandoned by its major proximity partner and that is opening the doors to capital and Chinese expansionism, thus putting its foot on the doorstep of the US.

But let's move on to the chronicle of what happened.

The hurricane arrived on September 1st. Locals do what they always do when hurricanes come. The houses are solid, built with cement bricks . They have always ensured safety. When the hurricane passes, you stay indoors, with closed and barred windows, with electric or kerosene lamps, with supplies of drinking water and canned goods, read the Bible, pray and wait for the storm to pass. Everything lasts a few hours, then the hurricane shifts.

This time it didn’t  go that way. The hurricane reached the unprecedented speed of 300km / hour and instead of passing quickly, given the enormous and anomalous speed, it stopped for 48 hours above the islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco: the two most economically important islands for the Bahamas after the capital Nassau. Furthermore, the hurricane struck precisely during a special full moon. What astronomers call "super moon". Lunar activity amplified the effect of the tides. The sea water rose dramatically,  pushed by the wind at 300 per hour,  the rain that fell from the sky was too much even for those who had always defended themselves in the traditional way and hoped to be able to do it once again. Hurricanes can be predicted well in advance and weather models are very reliable in indicating their trajectory. The people of the Bahamas were therefore all safe in their cement brick houses and shelters that withstood previous hurricanes. This was something monstrous. God's wrath unleashed like a fury. When this is the case, there is no escape. Like having an armored car but you get shot at with a TNT bomb. 2,500 people w died and 70,000 lost everything.

Here are some testimonials:

4 September 2019 - 3 days after the transition of maximum intensity:

Unfortunately, it still wasn’t over. The hurricane did not dissipate and continued to hit Abaco and Grand Bahama with Category 3 rain and wind making it difficult and even impossible to rescue survivors. Airports were under water and so were  the roads and most of the houses. In some areas 75% of civilian homes had been destroyed. Some of the cement brick houses  survived, but many  lost their roofs, and were flooded to the ceiling or both. It was too early to know the exact numbers of  the victims. A man with his wife and children were saved by swimming in the midst of the hurricane, to his sister’s home whose house was built on a small hill, and was not underwater. A man nearby communicated that he saw his wife die before his eyes. when the water reached the kitchen cabinets that she’d climbed onto for safety, she slipped into the water, that had reached the heights of the cabinets, probably causing  hypothermia. He saved himself by swimming towards his boat which was floating, carried by the wind and the current in the midst of the debris but fortunately it was anchored to something solid. Some people even had  sharks in their living room, like in so many idiotic movies about sharks.

5 September 2019

"We took refuge in a brick building that we thought was safe. First the roof came off, blown away by the strong wind, then the brick wall where we found shelter, started to sway, like when you hang your clothes to dry in the sun. At that moment I swam away and saw the wall collapse and crush the poor people who had not moved. I swam to a house with my 5 year old clinging to my back.

While I was trying to get him to safety on the roof of the house, something, perhaps a piece of metal carried in the water by the strong current, hit me in the leg and I started to bleed profusely. At that moment, betrayed by the severe pain, I let go of my baby's hand, which shortly after my baby slipped away from me and I saw him sink.

I took a deep breath and went down, into the brown water, blindly, once, twice, ten times, hoping that he would find my hand . I was looking for a flap of his shirt, a shoe, to feel his skin, but nothing. Exhausted, I saved myself and started crying.

I hope they find him, but it will be hard for a 5 year old to survive that rampage. That's how I lost my son. "

6 September 2019

“I saved myself clinging to  the beams of the ceiling of the house. The water was rising quickly and there was no place higher up to go . Fortunately, the water stopped rising, otherwise I would have drowned there, between the ceiling and the roof. At a certain point I realized that even the mice and snakes had had the same idea as me and had also taken refuge there to escape the hurricane. Except I have a phobia of snakes. An indescribable terror. I was up there, clinging to the beams of the house, among the snakes for many hours, until help arrived and they brought me to safety.”

October 2019

A month ago, Hurricane Dorian destroyed two of the islands of the Bahamas: Abaco and Grand Bahama, causing damage estimated at  least $ 10 billion, over 2,500 missing (dead) and leaving at least 70,000 people homeless.

My wife's brother miraculously survived with his children in his arms in a shelter, half submerged in water for over 40 hours while outside the hurricane was destroying everything . With winds at 300 km / hour and a plastic sheet over their heads, with their bodies half submerged in water. 40 hours is a very long time in those conditions. My wife's uncle  lost his home. He is a retired former police officer and was ready to enjoy a period of serenity after a lifetime of work. Not anymore! The house is gone. He was saved, along with his family because they know how to swim, and they made it to safety  by swimming through the storm to an elevated house that was not underwater. We are talking about 6 meters of water. Now they must start from scratch.

There are thousands of these testimonies and thousands of people who have lost their lives, sucked away and dragged by the sea to  who knows where.

Following these tragic events, my wife and I started a solidarity initiative to raise funds to donate to these families who have lost everything.

The famous Florentine painter Tiziano Bonanni donated a painting, which was auctioned and  this allowed us to raise a good sum of money. https://www.tizianobonanni.it/biography

Many friends, acquaintances and even people who have never even met me, contributed with donations and I will never stop thanking them. I hoped to be able to deliver the sum raised in person, for an initiative for the reconstruction of a school, but given the protracted travel block due to Covid, we decided to make the donation directly to some of the affected families. The amount of the collected sum was published on Facebook to give maximum transparency. Too many times we hear of people who obtain money from charity  and the needy folks the money was destined for, never see a penny.  I didn't want that to be thought off me.

We reached out to the famous journalist Shenique Miller, who has a very popular show called ‘The Conversation’. Through her contacts, local politicians selected the families most in need and the donation was delivered in the form of a cheque , directly into the hands of the victims of hurricane Dorian, live on Facebook. I wanted to do this, to show that every penny raised has ACTUALLY gone into the hands of the people affected by the tragedy.

The donation took place before Christmas 2020. It was very touching to see people moved with gratitude when they received the money we donated in their hands. Our nation Italy made a wonderful impression. I'm really proud of us. We were  heroes. Long live Italy! Thanks to friends who contributed! The initiative was masterfully coordinated by the talented journalist Shenique Miller. The success was so great that our donation served as an example. In fact, the show enticed many other entrepreneurs and celebrities to join in, not wanting to be outdone by us! It was a really good example and we managed to do good and give a Merry Christmas to those who lost everything in the tragedy of the hurricane. Here is the link of the transmission with my speech at about 40 min: https://www.facebook.com/theconversationbah/videos/3963404763679278/

The protracted health emergency has certainly not helped. A country like the Bahamas that thrives on tourism was hit, even by this difficulty, as so was the rest of the tourism sector, which brought anyone who worked with tourism to their knees.

We continue the solidarity activity towards the victims of the hurricane through the Italia Bahamas Onlus Association (FC 94286760486) of which I am the founder and president. For many families, nothing has changed. They continue to have no home and have also lost their jobs. For my next solidarity initiative , I am publishing my new book and the proceeds will be donated completely to the victims of the Hurricane. The announcement will be made in a future newsletter.

These are the main activities listed in the statute of the Italia-Bahamas Onlus Association:

Promotion and exchange anything related to gastronomy and culinary art including the possibility of promoting trade and exchanges with the aim of exchanging  each country’s  excellence and products of nature, land, sea, and gastronomic industry, catering and the food sector in general. Promotion of scholastic and academic cultural exchanges, acting as a trait d'union and intermediary for the organization of training courses, possibility of organizing trips for students, professors, professionals and expert craftsmen, supply of know-how and development of inter-relationships by creating platforms of academic work in every sector of schools, culture, art and crafts in the two reference countries, namely Italy and the Bahamas without excluding, where the need arises, also the adhesion and interest of other nations extending the field of interest to the whole world. Development of projects relating to the protection of the environment and the marine and terrestrial ecosystem that may concern the study and implementation of wide-ranging initiatives based on the most virtuous aspect of the conservation of natural resources, including solidarity initiatives in the event of calamitous events.

For donations:

FONDAZIONE ITALIA BAHAMAS -

IBAN: IT30F0521602804000000099891 - Swift code: BPMOIT22