Dorian lashes Bahamas

Hurricane Dorian battered the Bahamas early yesterday, peeling off roofs, toppling cars and snapping power lines as rising floodwater threatened to engulf houses. The second-strongest Atlantic storm on record was forecast to pound the archipelago through the day, then move slowly towards the east U.S. coast, where authorities ordered more than a million people evacuated in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia.

There were no immediate estimates of casualties as the category five storm covered the northwestern islands of Great Abaco and Grand Bahama with twisted metal and splintered wood. Winds gusting up to 200 mph (320 kph) destroyed or damaged more than 13,000 homes, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said. Residents posted images online of water rising up the side of their houses.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami warned of a possible storm surge that could push destructive waves higher than many roofs in the islands. As of 5 a.m. (0900 GMT), Dorian was stalled over the Grand Bahama Island barely drifting westward at 1 mph, according to the NHC. It was about 125 miles (200 km) from the Florida coast, where residents said they were already experiencing strong winds and high surf.

Palm Beach County, the third most-populated county and home to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, was among those with partial mandatory evacuations. Other counties announced voluntary evacuations. “This looks like it could be larger than all of them,” Trump said during a briefing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Sunday.