A man from the Bahamas who now lives in Manitoba says the last few days have been very stressful as he has watched Hurricane Dorian slam into his home country.

Naaman Sturrup grew up in the Bahamas capital city Nassau. For the last few years, he has been studying at Providence University College in Otterburne and he graduated earlier this year.

Hurricane Dorian is the Bahamas strongest hurricane on record, and it has claimed the life of 20 people with the death toll expected to rise. Sturrup says it was tough to watch it unfold on the news.

"I have been through hurricanes all my life, every fall we went through hurricanes for 20 years until I came to Manitoba but I know it is even worse now. It was really stressful when I couldn't hear from my family. I didn't hear from them in a few days because the electricity was off and the phone lines were down so I didn't hear from them."

Fortunately, Sturrup says, when he did finally get in contact with his family and friends, they were all safe. He adds Nassau is located on the island of New Providence which wasn’t hit quite as hard as the islands further east or north.

"We were fortunate enough not to get the full force of the hurricane but what they are seeing is still a ton of damage, a ton of homes destroyed, cars destroyed, and livelihoods destroyed. Peoples lives are shattered right now so now is just a time to rebuild and try to recover as well as we can."

Sturrup says he plans to visit the Bahamas in November for his sister's wedding and he expects to join in on rebuilding process when he arrives. He says the Bahamian people help one another out in times like this.

"We will all be all hands on deck basically. Whoever needs help, our neighbours, friends, family, someone down the street, it doesn't matter because we are all affected by it so we all know what each other is facing. Whatever we can do to help we will try to do."