Dorian topples crane, knocks out power in eastern Canada

TORONTO — Dorian arrived on Canada’s Atlantic coast Saturday with heavy rain and powerful winds, toppling a construction crane in Halifax and knocking out power for more than 300,000 people a day after the storm wreaked havoc on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Residents of Nova Scotia braced for heavy rainfall and potential flooding along the coast, as officials in Halifax urged people to secure heavy objects that might become projectiles. Businesses were encouraged to close early.

“We do not want the citizens of Halifax roaming downtown as the water is coming in,” said Erica Fleck, assistant chief of community risk reduction in Halifax, the provincial capital and home to 400,000 people.

A crane toppled and crashed into the side of a downtown apartment building under construction. In the city’s south end, a roof was ripped off an apartment complex, and firefighter Jeff Paris said several apartment buildings were being evacuated. With the collapsed crane and all the down trees and power lines, it’s fortunate there are no significant injuries or deaths, he said.

“The power went out hours ago, but we were well prepared,” said Tim Rissesco, who lives on the east side of Halifax harbor in Dartmouth. “We’ve got snacks and food and we’re hunkered down in the house playing board games and watching the rain and the wind.”

As Canada prepared for Dorian, floodwaters receded Saturday from North Carolina’s Outer Banks, leaving behind a muddy trail of destruction. The storm’s worst damage in the U.S. appeared to be on Ocracoke Island, which even in good weather is accessible only by boat or air and is popular with tourists for its undeveloped beaches. Longtime residents who waited out the storm described strong but manageable winds followed by a wall of water that flooded the first floors of many homes and forced some to await rescue from their attics.

“We’re used to cleaning up dead limbs and trash that’s floating around,” said Ocracoke Island resident and business owner Philip Howard. “But now it’s everything: picnic tables, doors, lumber that’s been floating around.”

Howard said by phone Saturday that flooding at his properties on the North Carolina island is 13 inches higher than the levels wrought by a storm in 1944, which he said had long been considered the worst. He raised his home higher than the 1944 flood level and still got water inside.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Howard, who owns the Village Craftsmen, a store that sells handcrafted pottery, glass and kitchen items. He said much of the merchandise on the lower shelves is ruined. Pieces of pottery were floating around inside.

Inside his house, the floorboards were buckling and curling up after being warped by the water, he said.

Gov. Roy Cooper said about 800 people had remained on the island to wait out Dorian. The storm made landfall Friday morning over the Outer Banks as a far weaker storm than the monster that devastated the Bahamas . Yet despite having been downgraded to a Category 1 storm, it still sent seawater surging into homes on Ocracoke, many for the first time in memory.


More than 1,100 Bahamians arrived in Palm Beach, Florida, after being evacuated by cruise ship from their hurricane-battered islands.

The Grand Celebration cruise ship returned to its home port after setting sail Thursday for Freeport, Grand Bahama, to deliver more than 112 tons of supplies and ferry dozens of health workers and emergency crews.

The storm made landfall Saturday evening near Sambro Creek, about 24 kilometers south of Halifax with maximum sustained winds of 161 kph.

Forecasters said the center of Dorian was expected to move across Nova Scotia, pass near or over Prince Edward Island, and then move to Newfoundland and Labrador on Sunday.

Canadian officials prepared for the possibility of flooding, washouts and storm surges, and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said the military was mobilizing to assist Nova Scotia.

Novia Scotia Power Inc. reported more than 300,000 customers were in the dark by 7 p.m., with power out in parts of Halifax, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Karen Hutt, the utility’s chief executive, said Dorian is the largest weather event the company had ever responded to, and 1,000 workers were ready to restore power once it’s safe.

Hurricanes in Canada are somewhat rare in part because once the storms reach colder Canadian waters, they lose their main source of energy. Canadian Hurricane Centre meteorologist Ian Hubbard said the last hurricanes to make landfall in Canada were Hurricane Igor and Hurricane Earl in September, 2010.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Dorian was officially a post-tropical cyclone, not a hurricane, though it still packed hurricane-force winds.

Dorian lashed the eastern tip of Maine with heavy rain, strong winds and high surf as the storm passed offshore. Several hundred homes and businesses lost power.

In North Carolina, the governor said officials were aware of no serious injuries on the Outer Banks from the storm. About 200 people were in shelters and 45,000 without power as of mid-day Saturday, according to the governor’s office. Emergency officials transported fuel trucks, generators, food and water to Okracoke.

At least five deaths in the Southeast were blamed on Dorian. Four were men in Florida or North Carolina who died in falls or by electrocution while trimming trees, putting up storm shutters or otherwise getting ready for the hurricane. North Carolina officials said a 67-year-old man died Friday in Pamlico County after he collapsed while cleaning storm debris.

Dorian slammed the Bahamas at the start of the week with 295 kph winds, killing at least 43 people and obliterating countless homes. From there, it swept past Florida and Georgia, then sideswiped the Carolinas on Thursday, spinning off tornadoes that peeled away roofs and flipped recreational vehicles.

Ocracoke resident and restaurant owner Jason Wells said he lost three vehicles and a golf cart to floodwaters, and he has $5,000 worth of food in a freezer on an island that still lacks power. He said by text message Saturday that he and family members were already bleaching and disinfecting their houses, but he feared weeks could pass before electricity returned to most houses because of wiring problems caused by floodwaters.

“We are a close knit community. We will power on,” Wells wrote. “We will persevere. We are family. Time to get to work.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Hurricane Dorian: Shocking Images of Teen Almost Drowning

Practically parking over the Bahamas for a day and a half, Hurricane Dorian pounded away at the islands Tuesday in a watery onslaught that devastated thousands of homes, trapped people in attics and crippled hospitals. At least five deaths were reported, with the full extent of the damage far from clear.

The United Nations and the International Red Cross began mobilizing to deal with the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the wake of the most powerful hurricane on record ever to hit the Bahamas.

Dorian’s punishing winds and torrential rain battered the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama, which have a combined population of about 70,000 and are known for their marinas, golf courses,

and all-inclusive resorts. The Grand Bahama airport was under 6 feet (2 meters) of water.

Bahamian officials received a “tremendous” number of calls from people in flooded homes, and desperate callers trying to find loved ones left messages with local radio stations.

One station said it got reports of a 5-month-old baby stranded on a roof and a woman with six grandchildren who cut a hole in a roof to escape rising floodwaters.

At least two designated storm shelters flooded. The U.S. Coast Guard airlifted at least 21 people injured on Abaco. Rescuers also used jet skis to reach some people.

“We will confirm what the real situation is on the ground,” Health Minister Duane Sands said. “We are hoping and praying that the loss of life is limited.”

Red Cross spokesman Matthew Cochrane said more than 13,000 houses, or about 45% of the homes in Grand Bahama and Abaco, were believed to have been severely damaged or destroyed. U.N. officials said more than 60,000 people on the hard-hit islands will need food, and the Red Cross said some 62,000 will need clean drinking water.

The Red Cross authorized a half-million dollars for the first wave of disaster relief, Cochrane said.

“What we are hearing lends credence to the fact that this has been a catastrophic storm and a catastrophic impact,” he said.

As of 11 a.m. EDT, Dorian’s winds had dipped to 110 mph (177 kph), making it a Category 2 hurricane, down from a terrifying Category 5 when it struck. The storm was centered about 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of Freeport and 105 miles (170 kilometers) east of Fort Pierce, Florida.

After standing still for nearly a day, it was on the move again, but just barely, pushing northwest at 2 mph (3 kph), or about as fast as a person walks.

Hurricane-force winds extended up to 60 miles (95 kilometers) from its center.

NASA satellite imagery through Monday night showed spots in the Bahamas where Dorian had dumped as much as 35 inches (89 centimeters) of rain, said private meteorologist Ryan Maue.

The Bahamas’ health minister said that Dorian devastated the health infrastructure on Grand Bahama and that severe flooding rendered the main hospital there unusable.

Sands said the main hospital in Marsh Harbor in the Abaco islands was intact and sheltering 400 people but in need of food, water, medicine, and surgical supplies.

He said crews were trying to airlift five to seven kidney failure patients from Abaco who had not received dialysis since Friday.

To the south, the Bahamas’ most populous island, New Providence, which is the site of the capital, Nassau, and has over a quarter-million people, suffered little damage.

Dorian was on track to approach the Florida coast later Tuesday and begin moving up the shoreline, but the threat to the state eased significantly, with forecasters not expecting a direct hit after all. The forecast instead showed North Carolina in the crosshairs toward the end of the week.

As Labor Day weekend drew to a close, over 2 million people in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were warned to evacuate for fear Dorian could bring life-threatening storm-surge flooding even if the hurricane’s center stayed offshore, as forecast. Several large airports announced closings, and hundreds of flights were canceled.

Having seen storms swamp his home on the Georgia coast in 2016 and 2017, Joey Spalding of Tybee Island decided to empty his house rather than take any chances with Dorian.

He packed a U-Haul truck with tables, chairs, a chest of drawers, tools virtually all of his furnishings except for his mattress and a large TV and planned to park it on higher ground.

He also planned to shroud his house in the plastic wrap up to shoulder height and pile sandbags in front of the doors.

“In this case, I don’t have to come into a house full of junk,” he said. “I’m learning a little as I go.”

Leaving one person dead in its wake in Puerto Rico, Dorian hit the Bahamas on Sunday with sustained winds of 185 mph (295 kph) and gusts up to 220 mph (355 kph).

It tied the record for the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever to hit land, matching the Labor Day hurricane that struck Florida Gulf Coast in 1935, before storms were given names.

Scientists say climate change generally has been fueling more powerful and wetter storms, though they say linking any specific hurricane to global warming would require more detailed study.

In the Bahamas, choppy brown floodwaters reached roofs and the tops of palm trees.

Parliament member Iram Lewis said he feared waters would keep rising and stranded people would lose contact with officials as their cellphone batteries died.

“It is scary,” he said, adding that people were moving from one shelter to another as floodwaters kept surging. “We’re definitely in dire straits.”

Forecasters said that the storm had come to a near standstill because the steering currents in the atmosphere had collapsed, but that Dorian would resume moving later in the day, getting “dangerously close” to the Florida coast through Wednesday evening, very near Georgia and South Carolina coasts Wednesday night and Thursday, and near or over the North Carolina shoreline late Thursday.

Walt Disney World in Orlando planned to close in the afternoon, and SeaWorld shut down.

In South Carolina, Interstate 26 was turned into a one-way evacuation route away from Charleston on the coast, and Georgia officials likewise reversed lanes on I-16 on Tuesday to speed the flow of traffic away from the danger zone.

“We’re taking the ‘better safe than sorry’ attitude,” Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said.

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and Weissenstein from Nassau, Bahamas. Associated Press reporters Tim Aylen in Freeport and Seth Borenstein in Washington contributed to this report.

source: usa.inquirer.net