The people of Florida are stocking up on essential supplies as Hurricane Dorian zeroes in on the Sunshine State and forecasters warn it could become a Category 4 storm by the time it makes landfall over the Labor Day weekend.
Donald Trump has cancelled a planned trip to Poland in order to oversee the federal response should Dorian smack the state, where Republican governor Ron DeSantis has already declared a state of emergency and where the president's own luxury golf resort Mar-a-Lago lies just 115 miles north of the storm's expected point of impact.
“It's something very important for me to be here,” the president told reporters at the White House. “The storm looks like it could be a very, very big one indeed."
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The Tampa Bay Times says the storm could become a Category 4 hurricane by the time it reaches Florida, where it is expected to make landfall by the town of Melbourne, some 115 miles north of the president's favourite glitzy clubhouse.
On Thursday, Trump warned the coming weather front would be "an absolute monster" after it grazed Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, averting the disaster many feared would be a repeat of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in September 2017.
