Dorian begins march up Southeast coast
As hurricane lashes Florida, more states brace for disaster
The National Hurricane Center warned in its 11 p.m. update Tuesday that within the next 36 hours, most of the Southeast coast, from Jupiter in central Fla., all the way to Surf City, N.C., would face “a danger of life-threatening inundation, from rising water moving inland from the coastline.” Storm surge warnings were posted for that whole region, with watches for areas on either side. In some parts of North and South Carolina, the surge could be between 4 and 7 feet above ground.
“Water levels could begin to rise well in advance of the arrival of strong winds,” the center warned, adding that the surge would be accompanied by large and destructive waves. In some places on the coast, seawater could rise to 7 feet above normal tidal levels.
Dorian was moving a bit faster, at 8 mph, toward the northwest, and it was expected to keep up that speed or gain a little more overnight, the center said. Its maximum sustained winds remained steady at 110 mph, and forecasters expected little change in its strength. By Wednesday evening, the storm was expected to turn to a more northerly track.
The storm was expected to move “dangerously close” to Florida and Georgia through Wednesday night, and Dorian’s center could be close to the South and North Carolina coast from Thursday to Friday morning, the center said.
With the center of the storm less than 100 miles east of Cape Canaveral, Fla., Hurricane Dorian was whipping Florida on Tuesday evening with tropical-storm-force winds, which extended out about 175 miles from the center.
A tornado or two near the coast of Florida was possible, the center said. The storm’s stronger hurricane-force winds, which extended about 60 miles from the center, remained some hours away from reaching the mainland but were likely to do so overnight.
As he described Hurricane Dorian as one of the greatest crises the Bahamas had ever faced, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis announced Tuesday night that the official death count had increased to seven on Great Abaco.
Minnis refused to confirm any deaths on Grand Bahama, but he noted that the government was expecting more casualties.
The prime minister said that in Marsh Harbour,
Abaco’s capital, roughly 60 percent of homes were badly damaged.
He said the Marsh Harbour area was underwater and “looks like a lake.” He noted that Treasure Cay’s airport was OK but that the roads were flooded. He also said the Haitian shantytown known as the Mudd had been “completely destroyed or decimated.”
The U.S. Coast Guard sent seven helicopters to the Bahamas to help with rescue efforts, but the continued severe weather was making it difficult for them to reach the hardest-hit islands, Rear Adm. Todd Sokalzuk said Tuesday.
Sokalzuk, the deputy commander of the Coast Guard’s Atlantic Area, said that about 35 people had been evacuated by helicopter from Marsh Harbour, the main town in the Abaco Islands. Some had been injured by the storm; others were patients hospitalized at a local clinic that was damaged.
Low visibility and high turbulence thwarted helicopters from getting to Grand Bahama Island despite two days of trying, the admiral said. “At this point we have only been getting somewhat west of the Abacos,” the admiral said. “We are very anxious for the weather to clear to get into Grand Bahama Island.”
The admiral said that airports on both Grand Bahama and Great Abaco were still awash with seawater and that roads had been washed out. “Based on the devastation we have seen in the Abacos, we think it will probably be worse in Grand Bahama,” he added. “Because the storm sat there for so long, there is probably increased damage. There are potentially more people that need assistance.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection also sent a helicopter and, at the request of the Bahamian government, was helping to ferry Royal Bahamian Police Force officers to the affected islands and then evacuate injured people on the return trip, the admiral said.
Hurricane Dorian, now a Category 2 storm, was finally inching away from the Bahamas, where rescue missions were hampered Tuesday because so many police and government vehicles were submerged in seawater that was only just beginning to recede.
The storm, which hit the northern Bahamas as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, pummeled the islands for more than two days with unrelenting rain and wind. It is highly unusual for a storm of Dorian’s magnitude to halt and hover over land, as it did in the Bahamas. By Tuesday evening, its center had moved nearly 100 miles north of Grand Bahama Island and was creeping northwest.