Catastrophic Dorian strikes Bahamas with full fury

[ahlam1399]

MIAMI: Hurricane Dorian unleashed "catastrophic conditions" Sunday as it slammed into the northern Bahamas, lashing the low-lying island chain with devastating 185 mph winds, the most intense in its modern history.The monster Category 5 storm made landfall at Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands at 1645 GMT, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre, which reported winds gusting over 220 mph. “This is a life-threatening situation. Residents there should take immediate shelter,” it said, predicting a towering storm surge of 18 to 23 feet.Local radio reported that people were calling for help after winds blew the roof off the Island Breezes Hotel in Marsh Harbor, a commercial hub in the Abacos. “Things are really starting to rock and roll,” a post on the Facebook page of the Hope Town Bulletin in Abacos said at 10 am local time. “Limbs cracking and popping now,” said another. Many Abacos residents were reported to have opted to ride out the hurricane rather than heed government warnings to evacuate.The Nassau Guardian quoted local resident Troy Albury as saying 150 people stayed behind in Guana Cay, in the centre of the Abacos, to face the storm´s fury. Only eight left on the last ferry out, he said.Power went out as the storm approached, a resident of Man-o-war Cay in the Abacos said.The NHC said Dorian had become “the strongest hurricane in modern records for the northwestern Bahamas.” “Catastrophic hurricane conditions are occurring in the Abacos Islands,” the forecaster said in its 1800 GMT bulletin. It said the storm was “heading with all its fury towards Grand Bahama” where it was expected Sunday night into Monday.NHC director Ken Graham on Facebook Live said the Bahamas would be under major hurricane conditions for a punishing 30 hours or more. “That´s major hurricane winds, that´s storm surge of 10 and even 20 feet in some of those areas,” he said. “That´s also torrential rainfall of 15 to 20 inches, isolated 30 inches.”In Washington, US President Donald Trump met with his emergency management chiefs and declared “this looks monstrous.” “We expect that much of the eastern seaboard will be ultimately impacted and some of it very, very severely,” he said.Tropical storm warnings were in effect for parts of the Florida coast, and residents up and down the Atlantic coast braced for a brush with danger. Florida issued its first evacuation orders in parts of Palm Beach, home of Trump´s Mar-a-Lago resort, and Martin counties.In Grand Bahama, meanwhile, businesses were boarded up and thousands have evacuated Dorian´s predicted path. “It feels like we are standing in a line waiting for a beating,” Yasmin Rigby, a resident of the island´s main city Freeport, said.Prime Minister Hubert Minnis has warned residents “the price you may pay for not evacuating is your life or other serious physical harm.”Trump canceled a high-profile trip to Warsaw to focus on storm preparations. “It´s just been building out there and moving very slowly,” he said at a meeting with Federal Emergency Management Agency officials. “It´s a bad thing, not a good thing. The slower it is, the bigger it is and the bigger it gets.http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/com/cwEr/~4/aqi2vOaeRqw

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