Canada braces for ‘Dorian’
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2019 17:22:14 +0000
NEW York: After harassing the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, ravaging the northwest Bahamas, and coming ashore in the US mainland over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, hurricane “Dorian” has a new destination: Canada.
Tropical storm and hurricane warnings are in effect for Nova Scotia, with tropical storm and hurricane watches for portions of Newfoundland.
Environment Canada is forecasting sustained winds of 95 kilometers per hour (kph) in most locales, while wind gusts could top 125 kph “near and to the south of the forecast track.”
Two to four inches of rain can be expected as well, while waves of 15 to 30 feet could result in “rough and pounding surf.”
Storm surge flooding is also possible, and Environment Canada said “warnings may be issued later today.” Dorian is expected to make landfall overnight Saturday (early Sunday in Manila) and into the early hours of Sunday near Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The city of more than 400,000 is bracing for sustained winds as high as 145 (kph) and gusts over 160 kph.
By then, the forward speed of Dorian will have picked up to more than 50 kph as it races northeast.
The storm will cover more ground in under three hours Saturday than it did all of Sunday and Monday in the Bahamas.
The death toll from hurricane Dorian’s devastating rampage across the Bahamas rose to 43 as of Friday night, a number authorities said is likely to climb “significantly,” even as rescuers plucked desperate survivors from the debris.
More than 260 residents of brutally damaged Abaco Island arrived in the capital city of Nassau after spending more than seven hours on a government-chartered ferry, a second of which was expected to arrive overnight.
Those who made it to safety awaited news of loved ones such as Diane Forbes, who had not heard from her two sons since Tuesday and was searching for them among some 200 evacuees sheltering at a gymnasium Friday night in Nassau, which was spared the wrath of the hurricane.
“They said they were hungry and the scent of the bodies, the dead, was really getting to them… I don’t know if my son is alive or not,” she said of one of her children, who had been in Marsh Harbor on Abaco with his girlfriend and her mother.
Health Minister Duane Sands confirmed the new death toll of 43, up from 30, according to newspaper reports.
“Forty-three is the official count, many missing and this number is expected to grow significantly,” Erica Wells Cox, a spokesman for Prime Minister Hubert Minnis, said. The Bahamian government did not immediately respond when contacted by Agence France-Presse.
Of the eventual death toll, Sands had declared previously that “the number will be staggering.”
“Literally hundreds, up to thousands, of people are still missing,” Joy Jibrilu, director general of the Bahamian tourism and aviation ministry, said.
Thousands of people were left homeless on the islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco and many were becoming frustrated with the speed of relief and evacuation efforts.
“There’s no gas station, no food stores, my job is gone” said Melanie Lowe of Marsh Harbor, whose house was partially destroyed and had packed into a two-bedroom apartment with 16 people before arriving in Nassau.
AP/AFP