Rescue crews in the Bahamas fanned out across a blasted landscape of smashed and flooded homes Wednesday, trying to reach drenched and stunned victims of Hurricane Dorian and take the full measure of the disaster. The official death toll stood at seven but was certain to rise.
A day after the most powerful hurricane on record ever to hit the country finished mauling the islands of Abaco and Grand Bahama, emergency workers had yet to reach some stricken areas.
“Right now there are just a lot of unknowns,” Parliament member Iram Lewis said. “We need help.”
Dorian, meanwhile, pushed its way northward off the Florida shoreline with reduced but still-dangerous 105 mph winds on a projected course that could sideswipe Georgia and the Carolinas. An estimated 3 million people in the four states were warned to clear out, and highways leading inland were turned into one-way evacuation routes.
The storm parked over the Bahamas and pounded it for over a day and a half with winds up to 185 mph and torrential rains, swamping neighborhoods in muddy brown floodwaters and destroying or severely damaging thousands of homes.
“We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country’s history,” said Prime Minister Hubert Minnis. He said he expects the number of dead to rise.