Written by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Patricia Mazzei and Frances Robles Hurricane Dorian continued its unrelenting assault on the Grand Bahama and Abaco islands Monday afternoon, causing “extreme destruction” as storm surges rose 12 to 18 feet above normal tide levels. At least five people were confirmed dead. Prime Minister Hubert Minnis of the Bahamas said the Royal Bahamas police force confirmed the deaths late Monday. Details about how the people died were not immediately available. Because of the storm’s stubborn refusal to move past the Bahamas, officials with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, a relief group based in Barbados, may not be able to visit the islands until Wednesday afternoon. Forecasters said the hurricane continued to creep west at just 1 mph, but it was expected to turn slightly north overnight. Its winds swirled at 145 mph and gusts rose to 180 mph. After moving toward the islands over the weekend, it practically came to a halt Monday and moved only 14 miles between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern time, when it was still about 105 miles off the coast of Florida. The storm was expected to continue drubbing the islands — which have a combined population of about 77,000, the majority of whom live on Grand Bahama — through Monday night, forecasters said, before resuming its course toward the Atlantic coast. “Tonight and tomorrow morning, we’ll start to see the pull to the north that we’ve all been anxiously awaiting, because we really need to get this thing off of the Bahamas and moving northward,” Ken Graham, the director of the National Hurricane Center, said in a Facebook video. Louby Georges, the director of international affairs for Human Rights Bahamas, said at least one friend had run out of drinking water and others had left tearful voice messages for loved ones. The islands’ water systems were expected to be compromised, so aid workers planned to send pumps and a two-week supply of food because food warehouses were most likely flooded. Ronald Jackson, the executive director of the Caribbean disaster agency, said that children made up about 15% of the islands’ population. Fewer than 10% are elderly. Abaco is home to enclaves of vulnerable Haitian migrants, he said. Dozens of worried families posted pleas for information about their loved ones on social media, and videos showed water rising around houses and devastated scenes of decimated homes, with roofs sheared from buildings and insulation strewn about the floor. The hurricane center advised people on both islands to remain in their shelters until conditions improved, warning that it could take several hours. In Florida, forecasters continued to warn that hurricane conditions were expected across the state and the southeastern coast of the United States. A hurricane warning was extended to about 180 miles of the Florida coast Monday, and tropical-storm-force winds blew on a South Florida beach. The much-monitored cone of uncertainty overlapped with nearly all of the state’s central and northern coast, meaning the eye could move over the eastern edge of the state during the next two days. Forecasters emphasized that even a minor diversion from the storm’s predicted route could bring the storm onto the coast. “It cannot be stressed enough that only a small deviation to the left of the NHC forecast could bring the core of the extremely dangerous hurricane onshore of the Florida east coast within the hurricane warning area,” a forecaster wrote in a briefing Monday morning, using the abbreviation for the National Hurricane Center. At 2 p.m. ET, forecasters said the hurricane would move “dangerously close” to the Florida coast, beginning late Tuesday night and continuing through Wednesday evening. Then, it is expected to continue “dangerously close” to the Georgia and South Carolina coasts beginning late Wednesday. President Donald Trump “reiterated his full support for Florida” in a phone call with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday morning, according to a statement from the governor’s office. Even if the hurricane’s center does not reach the Florida coast, strong winds and rain are all but certain to disrupt life in that region. Much of Florida’s eastern coast is also susceptible to dangerous storm surges, and tropical gusts up to 57 mph were expected to reach parts of South Florida overnight. “It’s like being stalked by a turtle,” said Ben Foster, the general manager of Brother Jimmy’s BBQ in downtown West Palm Beach, in describing the long wait for Dorian to brush the state. Brother Jimmy’s BBQ was the only restaurant open in the area at lunchtime Monday, and it was bustling with about two dozen people watching the U.S. Open and “SportsCenter.” A group of men played a golf video game, a respite from boarded-up homes. Mayor Jerry Demings of Orange County, which includes Orlando, said 150 residents were staying in shelters in the county. He said the region would be hit with winds from the storm around midday Tuesday and its effects would last through Wednesday afternoon. Rain from the storm reached the southern coast Monday, and the National Weather Service’s office in Miami said on Twitter that the first tropical-storm-level wind was recorded at 40 mph at Juno Beach Pier just before 1 p.m. Officials in the states north of Florida are growing increasingly anxious about the storm’s path toward their coastlines and have ordered many coastal residents to evacuate. Hurricane Dorian is now projected to approach South Carolina and Georgia as a major hurricane before barreling along the North Carolina coast as a Category 2 storm. “We know that we cannot make everybody happy, but we believe that we can keep everyone alive,” Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina said at a news conference, announcing that residents in portions of eight counties had to begin evacuating. North Carolina’s governor declared a state of emergency, and officials in at least two coastal counties, Hyde and Dare, issued mandatory evacuations for visitors and residents. State officials warned that heavy rain could cause life-threatening flooding from Wednesday night to Friday and that there was a possibility for tornadoes Norma Lemon, the owner of a Caribbean-themed restaurant on South Carolina’s coast, has evacuated three times in the past few years because of several hurricanes. She said Sunday that she was near tears at the thought of leaving her restaurant in Mosquito Beach again. “It just feels like here we go again with this one, like it’s not going to be good, you know?” she said.
