MIAMI _ With winds nearing 150 miles per hour, Hurricane Dorian remained a powerful Category 4 hurricane on Saturday evening as it approached the Bahamas, even as forecasters predicted it might spare a direct hit on Florida.
Still, the timing of storm's northward turn remained a cause for concern for Floridians as government authorities urged residents to nevertheless prepare for the worse. At 5 p.m. EDT the National Hurricane Center issued a tropical storm watch for a swath of the east coast, from Deerfield Beach to Sebastian Inlet, meaning winds of that strength could reach the coast in 48 hours.
The storm's projected path _ skirting the entirety of the Florida coast while churning northward _ also was now drawing concern for states such as Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina. But the Bahamas was expected to first bear the storm's brunt on Sunday.
"Severe Hurricane Dorian expected to hit portions of the Northwest Bahamas hard on Sunday," the National Hurricane Center said in its 5 p.m. advisory on Saturday.
Saturday evening's forecast showed Miami-Dade and Broward counties remain out of the so-called cone of uncertainty, although governments warned the region may experience windy weather, choppy waters and flooding, made worse by the king tide.
"It is way too early to let our guard down," Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said during a news conference Saturday at the county's emergency management headquarters in Doral. "We still have a 50-70% chance of tropical storm force winds and surges. Don't take down your shutters, not just yet."
For the past week, forecasts have placed Dorian's landfall up and down the Florida, and each update has shown a later arrival time.
On Saturday evening, the hurricane center projected that tropical storm-force winds would begin lashing the northwestern Bahamas, particularly the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama Island, on Saturday night. A hurricane warning remained in effect for Northwestern Bahamas, and a hurricane watch was in place for Andros Island.
Even with the improved outlook for Florida, there were still plenty of reasons to worry about an uncomfortable Labor Day weekend for Miami-Dade.
King tide flooding is expected to continue through Tuesday, adding a foot or more of water to areas already saturated with rainfall.
Elsewhere in the state, anxiety hadn't dissipated.
Brevard and Martin counties issued mandatory evacuations of their barrier islands beginning Sunday morning. The counties of Osceola, Palm Beach, St. Lucie, Glades and Hendry announced voluntary evacuations for people mobile homes or in flood-prone areas.
Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that Dorian could be a "multi-day storm" and said officials have distributed about a million gallons of water and plan to distribute almost 2 million meals from a central warehouse hub in Orlando. He also said President Donald Trump had approved his request for a federal disaster declaration for the state.
"That will enable us to draw down more federal resources in anticipation of this storm," he said Saturday in a media briefing. "The constant in this storm ... is that this thing is getting stronger."
Authorities were also being vigilant of the state's most vulnerable residents.
By Saturday morning, at least 684 of 687 licensed nursing homes had secured generators to keep the electricity running, said Mary Mayhew, secretary of the Agency for Health Care Administration.
The numbers for Florida's assisted living facilities are not as good, however. The state reported that 99 of the 3,062 licensed ALFs still have no on-site generator, or have provided no information about how they plan to keep residents safe in an emergency Only four facilities have said they have emergency plans to evacuate if needed.
Mayhew said AHCA staff is doing in-person and phone interviews to ensure generators are being acquired or, in the absence of that, there are appropriate plans to evacuate.
Florida mandated generators after 12 people died at a Hollywood nursing home after Hurricane Irma knocked out power to the facility's air conditioning system in 2017.
Despite the decreased threat of Dorian, some Florida residents praised state and local government officials for their measured warnings _ in contrast to the run up to Hurricane Irma in 2017, when evacuations were called for much of the state and created traffic gridlock for people fleeing the state.
"It's a good thing they're not calling for an evacuation five days out," said Scott Adams, 45, a firefighter and lifeguard in Vero Beach. "That's how accidents and injuries happen."
