Local couple's Bahamas home among only left standing

Mixed feelings from a Mattapoisett couple who recently built a second home in the Bahamas.

Last week, Hurricane Dorian flattened virtually everything on and near the Abacos in the Bahamas, including the area where Tim Moll and his wife just finished building a home.

"Essentially it was a huge, 20-mile-wide tornado that was coming at the islands," said Moll.

Past experience with Hurricane Hugo in 1989 led Moll to believe the house was probably gone.

"It was a very devastating storm to the Virgin Islands, and this was way bigger and it turned out way worse," he said.

Bigger and worse it was. Dorian turned out to be the most powerful hurricane in history to hit the Bahamas.

Moll could hardly believe it when he looked at an aerial shot and saw his home survived.

"We heard that every house on the west side of our island was destroyed except for ours," said Moll.

His house sits about 100-feet from the ocean, but it's elevated. Still, the fact that it's above water is not the only reason, he thinks, it survived the hurricane. Moll says it helped the house is small and low to the ground.

"You wouldn't see that around here," said Moll.

And it's built strong, using Florida's strict codes. And then there was sheer luck.

"These big storms spawn off tornadoes within the hurricane and a lot of the pictures we've seen it's quite evident tornadoes came through," said Moll.

He isn't planning on returning to the Bahamas anytime soon.

"Probably by November there will be commercial flights available again," he said.

Islanders will rebuild when they can, he says.

"There's basically no supplies. It's not like you can go there right now and buy a sheet of plywood and a box of nails. The lumber yards are gone," said Moll.

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