Bahamas Officials Search for Dorian Survivors as Storm Heads for Florida, Georgia

MARSH HARBOUR, Bahamas (Reuters) —
An aerial view of damaged houses seen from a U.S. Coast Guard aircraft in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, in Bahamas, Tuesday. (Courtesy Adam Stanton/U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area/Handout via Reuters)

The wreckage of pulverized homes, beached boats and floodwaters covered miles of the Bahamas in Hurricane Dorian‘s wake on Wednesday, as rescuers searched for survivors of the worst storm to ever strike the island nation.

The scope of the damage and humanitarian crisis was still unfolding as aerial video of the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas showed wide swaths of destruction and officials warned the current death toll of seven was likely to rise. Aid agencies estimated that tens of thousands of people would need food and other support.

“We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country’s history,” Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis told a news conference. “No effort or resources will be held back.”

Some storm victims remained on rooftops, awaiting rescue, according to media reports early on Wednesday.

“We can expect more deaths to be recorded. This is just preliminary information,” Minnis said.

“Marsh Harbor has suffered, I would estimate, in excess of 60 percent damage to their homes,” Minnis said, referring to the port on Great Abaco.

“The Mud, as we know, has been completely destroyed or decimated,” he said referring to a shantytown known as the Mud and the Peas.

Aerial video of the Bahamas’ Great Abaco Island showed miles of flooded neighborhoods, littered with upturned boats, and shipping containers scattered like toys. Many buildings had walls or roofs partly ripped off.

After rampaging through the Caribbean as one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded, Dorian wind speeds dropped on Tuesday to make it a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale. It maintained that level on Wednesday, but forecasters warned it was still dangerous.

Residents of coastal Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were bracing for Dorian‘s approach on Wednesday, with the National Hurricane Center warning the slow-moving storm could make landfall in South or North Carolina Thursday or Friday.

Some minor flooding occurs on the bridges from the beach towards communities from Hurricane Dorian in Jacksonville, Florida, Wednesday. (Reuters/Maria Alejandra Cardona)

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp extended a state of emergency to cover 21 counties as the storm tracked north towards its coast.

Dorian packed sustained winds of 105 miles per hour (165 kph) and was moving north-northwest at 8 mph, as it churned about 130 miles (209 km) south-southeast of Jacksonville, Florida, the NHC said in an 9 a.m. advisory.

Hurricane-force winds had expanded to 60 miles (100 km) from the storm’s core.

Heavy rains and storm-surge waters moving inland could cause life-threatening flash floods, the NHC said. The risk extended from Jupiter, Florida., to Surf City, North Carolina. Tornadoes were possible along the Florida coast, with the risk later moving to Georgia and South Carolina.

The exact toll in the Bahamas will not be clear until the storm passes and rescue crews are able to access devastated areas, said Theo Neilly, the Bahamian consul general in Washington.

As many as 13,000 homes in the Bahamas may have been destroyed or severely damaged, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said, in the strongest storm to hit the Bahamas.

Josh Morgerman, who went to the Great Abaco Island on Aug. 31, said Dorian was the most intense storm he had experienced in three decades of chasing hurricanes.

“Thought I was playing it safe by riding it out in a solid-concrete school on a hill in Marsh Harbour,” he said on Twitter. “Thought wrong … Winds pounded the building with the force of a thousand sledgehammers.”

When the storm’s eye passed over the island, Morgerman said he fled to a better-built government building that he found filled with others who had escaped collapsed houses.

Food may be required for 14,500 people in the northern Bahamas’ Abaco Islands and for 45,700 people in Grand Bahama, the U.N. World Food Programme said. The preliminary estimates were based on an assessment by representatives of Caribbean nations, the WFP and other groups.

Many Florida residents were relieved on Wednesday as their state was spared the worst of Dorian‘s wrath.

“This storm wasn’t bad as I thought it was going to be. The winds have been pretty tame,” said Andres Cuartas, 46, who owns rental homes in Jacksonville Beach. “By the size of the storm, I was a little bit worried. I panicked when it was in the Caribbean, when they had it at a (category) 5.”

An aerial view of a row of damaged structures seen from a U.S. Coast Guard aircraft in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian, in Bahamas, Tuesday. (Courtesy Adam Stanton/U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area/Handout via Reuters)

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