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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
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Lauren Aratani (now) and Jessica Glenza and Joanna Walters in New York (earlier)

Hurricane Dorian: 70,000 in 'immediate need of lifesaving' help in Bahamas – as it happened

Summary

We’re logging off here, but our reporters in the Bahamas and North Carolina will continue our Dorian coverage this weekend. Here’s a wrap up of everything that happened today:

  • The storm battered parts of North Carolina after the center of the hurricane hit the far eastern coasts of the state. The state’s Outer Banks were particularly hit hard with severe flooding and winds. The storm is now expected to make its way to Nova Scotia in Canada over the weekend.
  • More light has been shed on the wreckage Dorian left behind in the Bahamas. The death toll is still at 30 people, but the Bahamian health minister says the public will need to prepare for “unimaginable information about the death toll” as it continues to rise.
  • Aid has slowly been making its way to the islands. The United Nations said that about 70,000 people are in need of life-saving assistance on Grand Bahama and Abaco islands. The UN ordered eight tons of ready-to-eat meals, and crews have begun clearing streets and setting up aid distribution centers.

Oil leakage seen on the shore of Grand Bahama Island

Fears are growing that damage to a major oil storage terminal on the shore of Grand Bahama Island could cause oil to leak into the ocean, potentially damaging reefs and wildlife off the coast.

Dorian blew the tops off five crude-storage tanks at the South Riding Point oil storage terminal on the southeastern end of the island, causing oil to seep into the ground. Equinor, the Norwegian energy company that owns the terminal, wrote in a press release yesterday that oil had been observed on the ground outside of the tanks, though there were no immediate observations of oil in the sea.

The company said that while it has informed local authorities of the situation, “road conditions and flooding continue to impact our ability to assess the situation”.

Sam Teicher, “chief reef officer” for Coral Vita, a local company that works to protect the island’s reefs, told NPR the tanks were “covered with oil slick, and there were slicks going well around the facility and out into the road and forest”, adding that he saw a few workers assessing the damage, but “very few people have been able to even get out to that point”.

The Canadian Hurricane Centre just upgrade its hurricane watch for most of Nova Scotia to a hurricane warning. The storm is projected to make its way to the Canadian province around Saturday afternoon with conditions lasting until Sunday morning.

The Outer Banks on the eastern edge of North Carolina received the worst the storm brought to the United States. More than 200,000 residents of the state experienced power outages today.

The storm has been making an exit into the Atlantic this afternoon, sparing North Carolina from further damage. While the beating is nothing compared to the brutal storm that devastated the Bahamas, here’s what parts of North Carolina saw today:

Eighteen members of Florida’s Congressional delegation have called on President Trump to waive visa requirements for Bahamians seeking shelter after Hurricane Dorian.

The delegation joins the state’s two senators, Republicans Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, who on Wednesday wrote a similar letter to Trump highlighting the need for “shelter and reunification with family in the United States”. Approximately 20,000 Bahamians live in South Florida.

Florida is threatened by storms each and every year, and Floridians have close ties to the Bahamas. Now, lawmakers are reckoning with the help the people of the Abaco islands will need to recover.

The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland (@oliverlaughland) is on Grand Bahama Island today talking to survivors of the storm. He has been able to reach a remote part of the island via ship, here’s his latest dispatch:

As Erica Roberts clung to a tall mango tree, the winds and sea water churned up by hurricane Dorian pounding her face, a single thought ran through her head: “I will not die like this”.

Her home, in the small town of High Rock on the eastern side of Grand Bahama Island, had already been swept away. Her 24 year-old daughter Natori, was along side her clinging to branches as well.

Her face and arms still bear the dry, bloody cuts of her hours exposed to the 185 mph winds. The pair eventually lost their grip but were swept close to a nearby home that had withstood the hurricane’s devastation. They got inside.

“By the grace of God we made it,” she said. “We are survivors.”

The 41-year-old has not yet heard from seven of her close family: two sons, a sister, two nephews, cousins, uncles. All still missing. In this community of around 600, two people have been confirmed dead but at least 20 have not been heard from since Dorian spent almost two days destroying almost every building in sight.

“We need aid. We have nothing. Everyone is doing this self-sufficiently,” she said.

Parts of the road in to High Rock have been stripped of tarmac, leaving piles of rubble, exposed pipework and pools of bronzed water where trapped fish still swim. Broken pylons dangle in the street. The palms are bent at 45 degrees, their leaves shaved off by the wind.

Aid has only just begun to reach these more remote parts of the island.

The storm surge here rose to around 20 feet. Wind gusts were recorded at 220 mph. Many who have lived in this area, about half a mile from the sea, for generations, said the brutality of the storm was something they have never seen or heard of before.

For Roberts, who worked at a nearby casino – also obliterated – the unprecedented intensity of Dorian, the way it rapidly intensified to a category 5 and stood still over the island for over 24 hours, has an obvious explanation.

“I think the climate is playing a big role in all of this,” she said, starring at the muddy tiled floor of a partially destroyed family home she had now taken shelter in. “The severity of this… it’s global warming.”

“I’ve recycled all my life. I use less plastic. And think about less emissions. I’ve always been committed. But the world is not.”

The Bahamian Health Ministry said helicopters and ships are on the way to Abaco and Grand Bahama , two islands which suffered the worst of the storm, to provide aid and transport. However, severe flooding is causing delays. At least 30 people have been killed by the hurricane, but officials expect it to rise.

Survivors of Dorian are gathering at a port in Abaco, hoping aid and transportation off the island is coming their way. A new dispatch from the Associated Press paints the scene:

Carrying their meager possessions in duffel bags and shopping carts, hundreds of desperate storm victims gathered at the port in Grand Abaco on Friday in hopes of getting off the hurricane-devastated island, amid signs of rising frustration over the pace of the disaster-relief effort.

‘It’s chaos here,’ said Gee Rolle, a 44-year-old construction worker who waited with his wife for a boat that could take them to the capital, Nassau. ‘The government is trying their best, but at the same time, I don’t think they’re doing a good enough job to evacuate the people. It ain’t livable for nobody. Only animals can live here.’

At the port, some of those who lined up behind a yellow cloth tape arrived as early as 1 a.m., hoping to get to Nassau.

‘It’s going to get crazy soon,’ said Serge Simon, 39, who drives an ice truck and waited with his wife and two sons, 5 months old and 4. ‘There’s no food, no water. There are bodies in the water. People are going to start getting sick.’

People wait in Marsh Harbour Port to be evacuated to Nassau, in Abaco on Friday. The evacuation is slow and there is frustration for some who said they had nowhere to go after the Hurricane Dorian splintered whole neighborhoods. (AP Photo/Gonzalo Gaudenzi)
People wait in Marsh Harbour Port to be evacuated to Nassau, in Abaco on Friday. The evacuation is slow and there is frustration for some who said they had nowhere to go after the Hurricane Dorian splintered whole neighborhoods. (AP Photo/Gonzalo Gaudenzi) Photograph: Gonzalo Gaudenzi/AP

A quick update on Dorian’s location

In its most recent update, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said a Weatherflow station in North Carolina’s Outer Banks reported wind gusts of 98 mph and sustained winds of 83mph.

The storm was about 50 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, where the eye of the hurricane hit earlier today. It was roughly 460 miles off the southwest coast of Nantucket in Massachusetts.

Dorian is projected to move further away from the US coast today, moving toward Canada. The NHC said its moving toward the northeast at 17mph, and is expected to increase in speed through Saturday.

Hurricane Dorian’s center hit North Carolina’s east coast earlier this morning, but it is projected to head away from the state this afternoon. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images)
Hurricane Dorian’s center hit North Carolina’s east coast earlier this morning, but it is projected to head away from the state this afternoon. (Photo by NOAA via Getty Images) Photograph: Handout/Getty Images

Climate crisis

“Hurricane Dorian makes Bahamians the latest climate crisis victims,” tweets Climate Reality, the advocacy group founded by Al “An Inconvenient Truth” Gore, former Veep and early environment and climate activist.

The tweet echoes the headline of and links to an opinion piece in the New York Times.

Updated

Hurricane to hit Canada?

It’s not certain whether Dorian will still be whirling with hurricane force when it continues its track over the next 24 hours or so and arrives in Canada.

But one keen weather watcher reckons it will.

Winds still at 90mph this hour.

Updated

Flooding in North Carolina's Outer Banks

Ann Warner stayed on her home on Ocracoke Island, in the Outer Banks, a string of islands off the coast of North Carolina, as Dorian made landfall there this morning, the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt writes.

“Within 10 minutes it went from nothing to catastrophic flooding. We were prepared but not for this amount of water,” she told the Guardian.

“We have been through many hurricanes. This one just came fast with the storm surge.”

Warner, who owns Howard’s Pub on Ocracoke, rode out the storm with her son, Blackburn, and his dog, Rocky. She posted a series of videos to her Facebook page showing water swirling around the base of her house – it would eventually enter her first floor.

“We are safe,” she told the Guardian. “However Ocracoke Island had significant storm surge - the most we have experienced before.”

Warner said water had also made it into “many” homes that “have never had storm surge” before.

“The wind is still strong and water, while going down, is still extremely high,” she said at 11am.

The Outer Banks was under an evacuation order but many locals consider that more a message for tourists than those who’ve lived and ridden out storms here for years.

Warner said the water was higher than during Hurricane Matthew, a category 5 hurricane that devastated Haiti and had a dramatic impact on the south-eastern US in 2007.

The links between the Carolinas, powerful hurricanes and the climate crisis were explored earlier this summer in a Guardian article.

Here’s a tweet from the National Weather Service’s Newport/Morehead arm on the North Carolina coast.

Updated

Death toll in the Bahamas 'will be staggering'

Bahamian health minister Duane Sands has warned of the probability of a very high death toll in Abaco and Grand Bahama as the catastrophe continues to unfold.

He told people to brace for a “staggering” final count, when speaking to local radio late Thursday.

“The public needs to prepare for unimaginable information about the death toll and the human suffering,” he said.

The International Red Cross has estimated that almost half of homes on Grand Bahama have been wrecked, amid huge areas of flooding.

There are fears of looting by survivors, now that the 200mph+ winds and the cascading rainfall and crashing seas have abated.

Grand Abaco is said to be virtually uninhabitable.

The official death toll is still 30, but is expected to climb steeply as services reach the most stricken areas.

A coroner carries a body bag after discovering the body of a person, in High Rock, Grand Bahama, yesterday
A coroner carries a body bag after discovering the body of a person, in High Rock, Grand Bahama, yesterday Photograph: Ramón Espinosa/AP

Updated

Bahamas struggling as help on its way

Emergency officials are fanned out across stricken areas of the northern reaches of the Bahamas to track down people who are still missing or in distress.

Crews have begun clearing streets and setting up aid distribution centers.

The United Nations has announced the purchase of eight tons of ready-to-eat meals, the Associated Press writes, and said it will provide satellite communications equipment and airlift storage units, generators and prefab offices to set up logistics hubs.

UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said about 70,000 people “are in immediate need of life-saving assistance” on Grand Bahama and Abaco.

A British Royal Navy ship has docked at Abaco and distributed supplies to hurricane survivors.

On Grand Bahama, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship dropped off 10,000 meals, 10,000 bottles of water and more than 180 generators, as well as diapers and flashlights.

American Airlines said it flew a Boeing 737 from Miami to Nassau to drop off 14,000lbs of relief supplies. The airline is also giving frequent-flyer points to customers who donate at least $25 to the Red Cross.

Troops from the Rhode Island National Guard will be heading to the Bahamas on Friday to help.

Thousands of desperate people are still seeking help in Dorian’s aftermath. With winds of 185mph, the hurricane obliterated more than 13,000 houses on the Abaco and Grand Bahama islands.

Crews in Grand Bahama worked to reopen the airport and used heavy equipment to pick up branches and palm fronds. Lines formed outside gas stations and grocery stores.

“People will be out of jobs for months,” 67-year-old wood carver Gordon Higgs lamented. “They’ll be homeless, no food. Nothing.”

Total property losses, not including infrastructure and autos, could reach $7bn, the firm Karen Clark & Co estimated.

On Thursday, medical officials moved hundreds of people left homeless by the storm out of the main hospital in Abaco to shelters in schools and other government buildings.

At the Leonard M. Thompson airport, Rashad Reckley, a 30-year-old saxophonist, played the Bob Marley song Three Little Birds for people who had lost their homes.

“I want to lift up everybody’s spirits after all the tragedy that happened,” said Reckley, who said he had exhausted his repertoire after playing for hours. “They want me to play more. But I can’t think of songs to play.”

Passengers wait to board the Balearia Caribbean ferry that departs from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida earlier today, heading to Freeport in the Grand Bahama carrying relief aid
Passengers wait to board the Balearia Caribbean ferry that departs from Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida earlier today, heading to Freeport in the Grand Bahama carrying relief aid Photograph: Brynn Anderson/AP

Updated

The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt spent last night in North Carolina, as the region was battered by the outer bands of the hurricane. It made landfall Friday morning at Cape Hatteras. He was in the area during the 2018 hurricane season, too.

Wilmington, North Carolina, suffered more than most places at the hands of Hurricane Florence last year.

The city is on the bank of the Cape Fear River, about 15 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, and as Florence dumped record-breaking rainfall Wilmington was cut off entirely from the rest of the mainland by floodwater, with no access in or out for days.

Unsurprisingly, people here feared the worst as Dorian approached. On Thursday afternoon businesses along Wilmington’s main street were boarded up, and the streets deserted.

Residents hunkered down inside as the storm trundled along the coast – some residents took refuge in a bar that had remained open despite Dorian’s impending arrival.

On Friday morning, however, the worst fears proved to have been unfounded. There was a howling gale in Wilmington, but the rain had stopped and by 8.30am the sun was breaking through the clouds.

I’m staying in an apartment building looking out onto the Cape Fear river. A US Coast Guard ship is moored right outside, and hasn’t moved since Thursday evening – a good sign.

Even closer to the coast, residents of the popular tourist spots of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach were under mandatory evacuation orders on Thursday, but those areas also appeared to have missed the worst of the storm.

Local television crews reported some minor damage to buildings, but as with Wilmington, the overriding emotion was one of relief.

A person (not the Guardian’s Adam) observes boarded up businesses in Wilmington, North Carolina, as 2019’s Dorian got ready to follow in behind 2018’s Florence.
A person (not the Guardian’s Adam) observes boarded up businesses in Wilmington, North Carolina, as 2019’s Dorian got ready to follow in behind 2018’s Florence. Photograph: Jonathan Drake/Reuters

Updated

Rubio, Scott and DeSantis on way to Bahamas

The three Republican musketeers of Florida, Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott and governor Ron DeSantis, are heading to the disaster zone in the Bahamas to see how they can help.

Interestingly, they are coming around to the idea these days that the human-spurred climate crisis is kinda very real and already affecting Florida, with much worse consequences to come (if dramatic action isn’t taken).

Here’s a listicle from more than four years ago about Rubio’s climate change skepticism. If Florida had taken more action then......meanwhile, experts say global heating is increasing the intensity and frequency of monster hurricanes, which hit the Bahamas most fiercely this time, but a week ago had been feared to be heading close to Miami.

Marco Rubio is evolving on climate change. Not a minute too soon.

The Rubio Cube: inside the halls of Congress
The Rubio Cube: inside the halls of Congress Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland is now on Grand Bahama island and will file a dispatch later today. Here is the report, updated this morning, from Nassau, in conjunction with the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt, who spent the night in Wilmington, North Carolina, as Dorian howled in.

Updated

Hurricane Dorian’s flood waters surpassed the floor boards, already five feet off the ground, so Freeport banana-farm owner Alpha Celestin, 61, busted a hole in his ceiling, propped a ladder there and climbed inside with two of his workers, the Miami Herald writes this morning, in a dispatch from Freeport, Grand Bahama.

The venerable daily paper reports that the degree of destruction on the northern reaches of the Bahamas is “unimaginable”.

The article continues that Celestin knew the other men couldn’t swim, so he tied Styrofoam from his ceiling around their chests to keep them afloat. They stayed perched there for 48 hours.

“This is the first time I’ve ever come so close to death, like I was watching death in the eye,” he told the paper. “I never knew of such a hurricane.”

“Everyone expected to pull a dead body from that house,” he said. “When I called they were very happy.”

Read the full report here.

Abaco Island after Dorian
Abaco Island after Dorian Photograph: Kris Grogan/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Bahamas stricken but striving

A few meager possessions stuffed in plastic bags,
some of the haggard Bahamians who lost homes to the ravages of
Hurricane Dorian are waiting at a small airport hoping to catch planes
out of the disaster zone as an international humanitarian effort to
help the Caribbean country gains momentum and the official death toll has risen
to 30, the Associated Press writes.

A few hundred people sat at the partl- flooded Leonard M. Thompson
airport on Abaco island later yesterday, as small planes picked up the most
vulnerable survivors, including the sick and the elderly.

The evacuation was slow and there was frustration for some who said they had nowhere to go after the category 5 hurricane splintered whole neighborhoods.

“They told us that the babies, the pregnant people and the elderly
people were supposed to be first preference,” said Lukya Thompson, a
23-year-old bartender.

But many were still waiting, she said.
Despite hardship and uncertainty, those at the airport were mostly
calm.

The Bahamian health ministry said helicopters and boats were on
the way to help people in affected areas, though officials warned of
delays because of severe flooding and limited access.

At least 30 people died in the hurricane and the number could be
“significantly higher,” Bahamian health minister Duane Sands told The
Associated Press in a telephone interview late Thursday.

The victims are from Abaco and Grand Bahama islands and include some who died from injuries after being flown to New Providence island, he said.
The hurricane hit Abaco on Sunday and then hovered over Grand Bahama
for a day and a half.

Marsh Harbor, Great Abaco Island, Bahamas, on Thursday
Marsh Harbor, Great Abaco Island, Bahamas, on Thursday Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

First US landfall

Hurricane Dorian’s coming ashore at Cape Hatteras this morning marks the first landfall since the storm reluctantly departed the Bahamian archipelago, after hitting the northern reaches of the Bahamas over the weekend.

So after much trepidation all the way up the east coast of Florida, into Georgia and South Carolina (don’t mention Alabama), Dorian has made its initial and likely only US landfall on North Carolina’s Outer Banks barrier islands.

Flooding is happening there now, with reports of inundation on the small island of Ocracoke.

Ocracoke is towards the southern end of the wafer-thin barrier islands, offshore from where the Pamlico, Bay and Neuse rivers reach the ocean in North Carolina.

Stand by for fuller reports about the Outer Banks and a dispatch from our man in Wilmington shortly, while we take the opportunity meanwhile to update you on the disastrous situation in parts of the Bahamas.

Here’s part of the beautiful Ocracoke island before Hurricane Dorian hit
Here’s part of the beautiful Ocracoke island before Hurricane Dorian hit Photograph: Emily Chaplin and Chris Council/VisitNC.com

Dangerous winds

Having just made landfall at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, Dorian is spinning up the Atlantic Coast with winds up to 95mph.

Cape Lookout reported one-minute sustained winds of 81 mph, with a gust of 94 mph early Friday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Tropical-storm-force wind, meaning it’s over 39mph, is now blowing up to 220 miles from the center of the storm.

Hurricane-force winds mean speeds over 74mph and they are shrieking along up to 45 miles from the center.

Nags Head, North Carolina, earlier today
Nags Head, North Carolina, earlier today Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Hurricane howls over North Carolina Outer Banks

Good Morning, weather watchers. With Hurricane Dorian still upon us, we’ll continue to follow its progress and effects moment to moment today.

We have correspondents on location in North Carolina and on Grand Bahama, as well as our team keeping vigil at Guardian US HQ in New York, and we will bring you updates on the Atlantic coast and the Bahamas as they arise.

Dorian is still a category 1 hurricane and is currently shrieking up the barrier islands off the north-eastern part of North Carolina.

  • The storm’s eye is 10 miles off Cape Hatteras, moving north-east at 14 mph.
  • It is expected to continue at hurricane strength up the eastern seaboard, into tomorrow.
  • Conditions ranging from flood risk in North Carolina and Virginia to heavy surf in New England are on the cards.
  • The official death toll in the Bahamas so far is 30, but there is a tragic expectation of that possibly rising into the hundreds as the full impact of Dorian, which sat over Abaco and Grand Bahama as a category 5 on Sunday and Monday, continues to unfold.
  • Many in the Carolinas had a sleepless night as howling winds and sideways rain pounded coastal areas, following some tornados whipped up by Dorian. Curfews in many areas lifted this morning and the extent of any damage and injury will become clearer. So far, four people are thought to have succumbed to storm-related death in the US.
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