Middle Tennessee State University President Dr. Sidney McPhee and a group of school supporters spent Sunday on a relief mission in the Bahamas, delivering supplies for victims of Hurricane Dorian there. Two flights took off from the Murfreesboro airport Sunday morning in this Raider Relief project: one flown by Trustees’ Vice Chair Darrell Freeman, and the other by Captain Terry Dorris with the MTSU Aerospace program.
Raider Relief supplies were off-loaded from both aircraft at the airport in Freeport, Bahamas and delivered to a nearby church that has agreed to serve as a pick-up point for families of MTSU students. Dr. Sidney McPhee thanked the congregation of Life Fellowship Church, which also provided trucks and help to unload the planes. The MTSU president is from the Bahamas. He lost a family member, his great niece, as Dorian pounded the island nation with heavy wind and flooding conditions.
ABC News reports that Dorian was the strongest storm in history to hit the Bahamas, and the fact that it moved so slowly across the islands–about one mile per hour–decimated the islands for 48 hours, leading to the deaths of at least 43 people.