Tough Hurricane Dorian churns Atlantic with startling force.
McLEAN’S TOWN CAY, Bahamas — Hurricane Dorian struck the northern Bahamas as a catastrophic Category 5 storm Sunday, its record 185 mph winds ripping off roofs, overturning cars and tearing down power lines as hundreds hunkered down in schools, churches and shelters.
Dorian slammed into Elbow Cay in Abaco island at 12:40 p.m., and then made a second landfall near Marsh Harbour at 2 p.m., after authorities made lastminute pleas for those in lowlying areas to evacuate.
“It’s devastating,” said Joy Jibrilu, director general of the Bahamas’ Ministry of Tourism and Aviation. “There has been huge damage to property and infrastructure. Luckily, no loss of life reported.”
With its maximum sustained winds of 185 mph and gusts up to 220 mph, Dorian tied the record for the most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever to come ashore, equaling the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, before the storms were named.
There were indications that the slowmoving Dorian would veer sharply northeastward after passing the Bahamas and track up the U.S. Southeast seaboard. But authorities warned that even if its core did not make U.S. landfall, the potent storm would probably hammer the coast with powerful winds and heavy surf.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster ordered a mandatory evacuation of the entire coast of the state amid Dorian’s threat. The order, which covers about 830,000 people, goes into effect at noon Monday, when state troopers will begin reversing lanes so they all head inland on major coastal highways.
“We can’t make everybody happy,” McMaster said. “But we believe we can keep everyone alive.”
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also ordered a mandatory evacuation of the state’s Atlantic coast starting at midday Monday, and authorities in Florida ordered residents in some vulnerable coastal areas to leave.
More than 600 Labor Day flights in the U.S. had been canceled as of Sunday, many of them in Florida as Dorian barreled toward the state’s coast.
The only recorded storm that was more powerful was Hurricane Allen in 1980, with 190 mph winds. That storm did not make landfall at that strength.
“Catastrophic conditions” were reported in Abaco, with a storm surge of 18 to 23 feet. The hurricane was moving west at just 5 mph.
In the northern stretches of the archipelago, hotels closed, residents boarded up homes and officials hired boats to move people to bigger islands.
Video that Jibrilu and government spokesman Kevin Harris said was sent by Abaco residents showed homes missing parts of their roofs, downed power lines and smashed and overturned cars.
Over two or three days, the hurricane could dump as much as 4 feet of rain, in addition to the winds and storm surge, said meteorologist Ryan Maue.
After the Bahamas, the slowcrawling storm was forecast to turn sharply and skirt toward the U.S. coast, staying just off Florida and Georgia on Tuesday and Wednesday and then buffeting South Carolina and North Carolina on Thursday.
The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for Florida’s east coast from Deerfield Beach north to the Volusia and Brevard county line.