Dorian slowly turns north
Category 2 storm now a bigger threat to Ga., Carolinas than to Florida
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Category 2 Hurricane Dorian slowly pulled away from Grand Bahama Island on Tuesday, revealing scenes of total destruction from the record-breaking storm. Millions of people along the East Coast remained on high alert as the storm made its predicted turn north.
Moving 6 mph late Tuesday, with winds of 110 mph, Dorian was moving nearly parallel to the east coast of Florida. Georgia and the Carolinas appeared more likely to suffer the brunt of the offshore cyclone, though there is still the risk of landfall.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic basin, Tropical Storm Fernand formed in the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to move west into Mexico. Tropical Depression 8 also formed in the far off Atlantic, about 585 miles west- northwest of t he Cabo Verde Islands. If it becomes a tropical storm, it would be named Gabrielle.
National Hurricane Center forecasters said Dorian is unlikely to move significantly until Wednesday as a trough to the north and area of high pressure to the west team up to bully Dorian out of the way like bouncers tossing a drunk from a club.
The hurricane will then move dangerously close to the Florida east coast through Wednesday evening, very near the Georgia and South Carolina coasts Wednesday night and Thursday, and near or over the North Carolina coast
late Thursday.
Southeastern North Carolina was placed under a hurricane warning late Tuesday. A storm surge warning is also in effect for the entire region.
Dorian's 110 mph winds were only an improvement considering the comparison to its former muscle-bound Category 5 self that topped out with 185-mph winds and 220-mph gusts.
Evacuations continued
in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, with some inter states converted to all-inbound lanes. As much as 10 to 15 inches of rainfall is possible in the coastal Carolinas, prompting fear sofa repeat of hurricanes Floyd and Florence's devastation, in 1999 and 2018, respectively.
“We got a lot of experience from last year,” said Bobby Dorsch, manager of a Piggly Wiggly grocery store near Wilmington, North Carolina.
Shoppers were loading their carts with water, canned goods and batteries, the memories still fresh of going days without power and water.
So fresh, that the New Hanover County emergency management director has mistaken ly referred to Dorian as Florence a few times .“I think people have a heightened sense of awareness of the impacts,” the director, Steven Still, said. “Prolonged power out ages, no access to sanitary services – people remember that.”