Hurricane Dorian is devastating the Bahamas after the historic Category 5 storm parked over the island chain for multiple days, killing at least five people and leaving thousands of homes, buildings and an airport under feet of water.
“We are in the midst of a historic tragedy,” Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said. “The devastation is unprecedented and extensive.”
Hundreds of thousands of people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina have meanwhile been ordered to evacuate before the storm rolls up the Eastern Seaboard, bringing the possibility of life-threatening storm-surge flooding even if Dorian’s heart stays offshore, as forecast. Several large airports announced closures and many flights were cancelled for Monday and Tuesday.
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"We are in the midst of a historic tragedy," prime minister Hubert Minnis said. "The devastation is unprecedented and extensive."
Winds and rain continued to pound the northwest islands, sending people fleeing the floodwaters from one shelter to another.
By Tuesday morning, the storm's top sustained winds had dipped to 120mph, making it a Category 3 hurricane, but it remained almost stationary. It was centered 25 miles northeast of Freeport - roughly the same distance from the city as at 9am. Hurricane-force winds extended out as far as 45 mph in some directions.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were ordered to evacuate before the storm rolls up the Eastern Seaboard, bringing the possibility of life-threatening storm-surge flooding even if the storm's heart stays offshore, as forecast. Several large airports announced closures and many flights were cancelled for Monday and Tuesday.
The US Coast Guard airlifted at least 21 people injured on Abaco Island, which Dorian hit on Sunday with sustained winds of 185mph and gusts up to 220mph, a strength matched only by the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, before storms were named. Scientists say climate change generally has been fueling more powerful and wetter storms and the only recorded storm more powerful than Dorian was Hurricane Allen in 1980, with 190mph winds, though it did not make landfall at that strength.
Abaco and Grand Bahama, neither much more than 40 feet above sea level at their highest points, are home to some 70,000 people.
Bahamian officials said they received a "tremendous" number of calls from people in flooded homes. One radio station said it received more than 2,000 distress messages, including reports of a 5-month-old baby stranded on a roof and a woman with six grandchildren who cut a hole in a roof to escape rising floodwaters. At least two designated storm shelters flooded.
Dorian killed one person in Puerto Rico, at the start of its path through the Caribbean.
Minnis said many homes and buildings were severely damaged or destroyed, but it was too early to say how much the rebuilding effort would cost. Choppy brown floodwaters reached roofs and the top of palm trees on Monday.
Parliament member Iram Lewis said his greatest fear was that waters would keep rising overnight and that stranded people would lose contact with officials as cellphone batteries died.
"It is scary," he said, adding that Grand Bahama's airport was 6 feet (almost 2 meters) underwater and that people were moving shelters as floodwaters kept surging. "We're definitely in dire straits."
The US National Hurricane Center said Dorian was expected to start moving slowly to the west-northwest on Tuesday while continuing to pound Grand Bahama Island into the morning.
The Center said the track would carry the storm "dangerously close to the Florida east coast late on Tuesday through Wednesday evening and then move dangerously close to the Georgia and South Carolina coasts on Wednesday night and Thursday."
While it was expected to stay offshore, meteorologist Daniel Brown cautioned that "only a small deviation" could draw the storm's dangerous core toward land.
A few hours later, Georgia governor Brian Kemp ordered mandatory evacuations for that state's Atlantic coast, also starting at midday Monday.
Authorities in Florida also ordered some mandatory evacuations.
FlightAware.com reported that that airlines had cancelled 1,361 flights within, into or out of the US by Monday afternoon - vastly above an average day - with Fort Lauderdale International the most affected, and airlines had already cancelled 1,057 flights for Tuesday, many involving Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Miami airports.
A hurricane watch was in effect for Florida's East Coast from Deerfield Beach north to South Santee River in South Carolina. A storm surge watch was extended northward to South Santee River in South Carolina. Lake Okeechobee was under a tropical storm watch.
A National Guard official, John Anderson, said many people were complying with the evacuation orders.
"We have not seen much resistance at all," he said.
The politician filmed a video of the damage to his property on Grand Lucayan Waterway in Grand Bahama, calmly showing the water level halfway up his windows and doors.
Zamira Rahim has more.
It may sound strange when talking about a storm that once had 185 mph (298 kph) winds, but it’s actually been too calm high in the atmosphere. While this has been horrible for the Bahamas, where the storm’s pounding has been relentless, it may help spare Florida a bit, meteorologists said.
Usually the upper atmosphere’s winds push and pull hurricanes north or west or at least somewhere. They are so powerful that they dictate where these big storms go.
But the steering currents at 18,000 feet (5,486 meters) above ground have just ground to a halt. They are not moving, so neither is Dorian.
After reaching record-tying wind speeds on landfall in the Bahamas, the storm just stalled. Its eyewall first hit Grand Bahama Island Sunday night, and 18 hours later part of the eye still lingered there, meteorologists said. The hurricane center late Monday called the storm “stationary” after several hours of crawling at 1 mph (1.6 kph).
AP
Donald Trump has insisted he is right - and meteorologists are wrong - over his repeated claim Hurricane Dorian could strike parts of Alabama.
Forecasters, including the government’s own National Weather Service, were forced to correct the US president after he warned in a tweet on Sunday morning that Alabama would “most likely” be hit by the record-breaking tropical storm, which is currently devastating the Bahamas.
“Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east,” the NWS tweeted.
Three other states – Florida, South Carolina and Georgia – are all ordering part or full evacuations of their coastal areas and North Carolina has declared a state of emergency, but there are no evacuation orders in place in Alabama.
Maria Cazanes had her belongings tossed from her second-floor condo in the US city after her landlord claimed she was violating rules by keeping cats.
Police, who were there to serve the eviction notice, are understood to have watched on as the landlord's associates threw her belongings from the second-floor South Beach flat onto the street below.
