Pictures and videos from the Bahamas are usually of vacationers, passengers on cruise ship excursions, wedding parties in hotel gardens and outdoor parties on the beach.
But the pictures and videos from the Bahamas this week are telling a very different story, a story that has already been described as historic. Some of the aerial views are hard to believe.
One member of the government describing it as the worst he has ever witnessed in person or in pictures or videos.Another government official says that while the Bahamas have had to deal with many tropical storms and hurricanes, nothing has ever happened like this hurricane.
The devastation is of record proportions he says. Tens of thousands of homes levelled, thousands more heavily damaged. People who were trapped by rising storm surge in second floor attics and are now missing. Roads, airports and even hospitals unusable.
A volunteer with a hurricane relief group described it this way: "It's total devastation. It's decimated. Apocalyptic”…adding…“It's not rebuilding something that was there; we have to start again.
To do that, the people in the Bahamas will need help from other countries and government agencies and volunteer organizations.
For now, and for possibly for some time, the pictures and videos from the hurricane-ravaged areas of the Bahamas will tell stories of restoration more than they will of vacation.
WATCH VIDEO OF AERIAL VIEWS FROM BAHAMAS
(Photo credit Getty Images)