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(CNN) - Some survivors of Hurricane Dorian evacuated to the United States from the Bahamas are arriving with little more than the heartbreaking stories left by the hurricane, the devastation of its aftermath and the despair of those left behind.
Natasha Harvey of Freeport in Grand Bahama landed in Florida on Saturday aboard the Grand Celebration cruise. The shock and sadness are still evident on his face two days later.
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She breaks into tears often when she talks about the terrible experience, and her daughter, her 12 brothers and sisters and other relatives left behind.
Natasha Harvey
“People need help right now. People need to leave now, ”he told CNN, sobbing as he adds that he had to leave his family.
“Many people lost their lives. There is no shelter. They are fighting for water to bathe. Water to drink. Food, ”he said about the island he just left. "Everything was damaged."
Dorian, the strongest hurricane that has ever hit the Bahamas, left 70,000 homeless in Grand Bahama and the Abaco Islands. There are at least 50 are dead and government officials warn that the final death toll will be much higher.
There are cars under water, clothes and furniture scattered on the streets, Harvey said. People were looking for clothes and hung up to dry to have something to wear.
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Everyone wanted to get on the ship, he said, but there was not enough space, and many did not have the correct documentation, such as police records, which were impossible to obtain, he added. The police station was underwater and closed, he said.
"I just ran away with what I had," Harvey said. “I left with 60 dollars. That is all I had. ”
People were pushing to get on the ship, he said, "because they know there is nothing to stay for. There is nothing to stay for. ”
There were people who had spent days in the trees after the storm, trying to survive, and had no documentation, he said.
Harvey and his extended family survived by going to a shelter, he said.
"Thank God the water didn't start at night because everyone would have died," he said.
A friend of his had not seen her children since the storm, she said.
Edward Christian Sawyer III told CNN that he and his family survived in Abaco by tying each other with an electric cable and climbing up a hill together through the wind and water to reach his sister's house on a hill near His mother's house.
"If we hadn't done that, some of us could have flown," he said. His mother's house was destroyed, demolished its foundations and crushed, he added.
Sawyer said he spent four days without food and that he woke up simply "praying to God to get out of that rock," he said. "It was hell."
Sawyer, who said he is a volunteer on a search and rescue team in Abaco, first dated the US Coast Guard, but returned for his family and his fiancee, who has a muscular disorder.
A helicopter pilot transferred him and his girlfriend in a medical evacuation, and the rest of his family is now in Nassau, where no damage was recorded, he said.
Ceva Seymour, 56, also arrived in Florida aboard the Grand Celebration with more than a dozen family members.
He said that the hurricane was "very intense" and that he could see how he raised the roof of the house where he was at that time.
"I prayed a lot and asked God to calm the storm," he said.
Harvey said the rest of his family had tried to leave, but he couldn't. She has been able to talk to one of her sisters, who has Wi-Fi and can charge her battery in the car, she said.
"There are only a few who can do it," he said of the people struggling to leave the island. “And we need help, we need all the help. Please, someone help us. ”
Bahamas, Hurricane Dorian