New Hurricane Isaias drenches Bahamas

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO » Forecasters declared a hurricane watch for parts of the Florida coastline on Friday as Hurricane Isaias drenched the Bahamas on a track for the U.S. East Coast.

Officials in Florida said they were closing beaches, marinas and parks in Miami-Dade County beginning Friday night. Mayor Carlos Giménez said the county has 20 evacuation centers on standby that could be set up with COVID-19 safety measures.

But authorities in North Carolina ordered the evacuation of Oracoke Island, which was slammed by last year’s Hurricane Dorian, starting Saturday evening.

Isaias had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph Friday afternoon and was expected to remain a hurricane for the next few days, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was centered about 245 miles southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas and was moving northwest at 16 mph.

The hurricane knocked shingles off roofs in the Bahamian island of San Salvador as it carved its way through an archipelago still recovering from Dorian’s devastation. Bahamas Power and Light Co. warned it would cut power in certain areas for safety starting Friday night.

Paula Miller, Mercy Corps director for the Bahamas, told The Associated Press that while the islands can normally withstand strong hurricanes, they have been destabilized by the pandemic and the damage caused by Dorian.

“With everything not quite shored up, property not secured, home not prepared, even a Category 1 will be enough to set them back,” she said.

On Thursday, while still a tropical storm, Isaias toppled trees, destroyed crops and caused widespread flooding and small landslides in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where hundreds of thousands of people were left without power and water.

Officials reported that a man died in the Dominican Republic when he was electrocuted by a fallen electrical cable.