Miami:
Monstrous Hurricane Dorian changed course slightly on Saturday and put itself on a possible track to hit the Carolinas rather than Florida as previously forecast, after a dangerous blast through the Bahamas.
Meteorologists said Dorian has grown into an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm as it heads toward land with great potential for destruction.
“There’s been a notable change overnight to the forecast of #Dorian after Tuesday,” the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Twitter.
Dorian will keep moving westward through the weekend but is then forecast to turn northward, towards Georgia and the Carolinas, as it approaches the east coast of Florida early next week, the center said.
It said this does not rule out Dorian making landfall on the Florida coast, as much of that state remains in the so-called cone of uncertainty — the range of possibilities for the center of the storm.
In the Bahamas, government offices closed and people rushed to get ready for a storm they were told could cause catastrophic damage.
Prime Minister Hubert Minnis urged residents of the Atlantic Ocean archipelago in the path of the hurricane to seek safety.
“The price you may pay for not evacuating is your life or other serious physical harm,” Minnis said.
One resident of the capital Nassau, Lucy Worboys, said, “The tide is incredibly high at the moment, so people are very concerned about sea surges, as the Bahamas is so flat.”
The NHC said Dorian is expected to be near or over the northwestern Bahamas on Sunday, and near the Florida east coast late Monday through Tuesday.
The storm has strengthened to an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane on a five-level scale, it said.
Winds have intensified to nearly 150 miles per hour (240 kilometers per hour), with higher gusts, according to an NHC update. That makes Dorian almost Category 5.
– ‘Very great danger’ –
Minnis told a press conference Friday that the storm was potentially life-threatening.
“Those who refuse to evacuate place themselves in very great danger… Do not put your life and those of your loved ones at unnecessary risk.”
Worboys said gas stations and supermarkets are packed, and the start of school for her kids has been delayed a few days.
“We are just thinking – could this one be crazy, or could it be nothing?” she added.
President Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter Saturday morning saying, “It’s moving around and very hard to predict, except that it is one of the biggest and strongest (and really wide) that we have seen in decades. Be safe!”
With the path of the storm still uncertain, coastal Florida residents were not yet under evacuation orders but were stocking up on food, water and other supplies and making preparations to flee their homes.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued a statewide declaration of emergency and urged its millions of residents to prepare for what he said could be a “major event.”
“We’re anticipating a massive amount of flooding,” DeSantis said. “We urge all Floridians to have seven days’ worth of food, medicine and water.”
“If you’re in an evacuation zone and you’re ordered to evacuate, please do so,” DeSantis said.
The Florida National Guard said about 2,000 service members had been mobilized so far, with another 2,000 to be deployed on Saturday.
– ‘Absolute monster’ –
Trump declared a federal state of emergency in Florida, authorizing US assistance to supplement state and local efforts.
Georgia — another southeastern state that could be in the storm’s path — has declared a state of emergency for 12 counties.
The US Coast Guard said ocean-going commercial vessels should make plans to leave south Florida ports.
A number of schools announced that classes would be canceled until at least Tuesday.
Orlando International Airport said it would halt commercial flights at 2:00 am (0600 GMT) on Monday as a precaution. Orlando is the main airport for Disney World.
NASA is also close by, and the US space agency said it was moving an enormous mobile rocket launcher from a launch pad into a vehicle assembly building to protect it from the storm.
