Hurricane Dorian weakens while remaining static over Grand Bahama

Dorian's maximum sustained winds were reduced at 11:00 p.m. at 130 miles per hour (mph) and remains static about 30 miles north-northwest of Freeport, Grand Bahama. It is predicted that it will generate a storm surge between 18 and 23 feet.
According to the 11:00 p.m. newsletter of the National Hurricane Center (NHC) Dorian is located at latitude 26.9 degrees north, longitude 78.5 degrees west, about 105 miles east of West Palm, Beach, Florida.

Winds with hurricane force extend 45 miles from the center, while tropical storm winds extend up to 150 miles.
The atmospheric phenomenon remains static over Grand Bahama because the wind currents at 18,000 feet stopped completely. It is expected to start moving north-northwest during Tuesday afternoon.
A high pressure system in Bermuda acts as a wall that has not allowed the hurricane to move north. Meanwhile, a low pressure system moving through the United States to the east has begun to erode the high pressure system and attempts to pull the hurricane north. This battle between the two systems caused Dorian to park over Grand Bahama.
Grand Bahama State Minister Kwasi Thompson and other officials said they received distress calls about flooding with increasingly high water levels, but rescuers did not go to the sites due to dangerous conditions.
"They are ready to go to those areas as soon as the weather subsides"he commented.
Meanwhile, the NHC extended alerts and warnings along the coast of Florida and Georgia.
Forecasters expect Dorian to stay off the coast, but meteorologist Daniel Brown warned that “Just a small deviation” I could drive the dangerous center of the storm to the mainland.

By Monday morning, water levels had reached the roofs and the top of palm trees on the island of Grand Bahama. A woman recorded the flooding on the steps of the second floor of her house.

In Freeport, Dave Mackey took a video showing the water and debris floating around his home while the wind whipped outside.
“Our house is 15 feet high and right now there is water that is around 8 feet. So we are quite worried because we don't have a high tide, ”said Mackey, who shared the video with The Associated Press. "The garage door has already come off … Once we can get out of this alive, we will be happy".
On Sunday the hurricane hit hard against the island of Abaco with strong winds and waves, and caused heavy floods while people called the radio stations and sent desperate messages on social networks to find their family and friends.
"We had catastrophic damage here in Abacus," Darren Henfield, a member of Parliament, told reporters. He added that the authorities still did not have information about what happened in surrounding areas. "We are in a search and recovery mode … Keep praying for us."
Information began to emerge from the affected islands: the Bahamas Power and Light electricity company reported that there was a total blackout in New Providence, the most populated island in the archipelago. He also noted that the company's office on Abaco Island was razed by the storm.

“Reports that come out of Abacus are not good”Quincy Parker, a spokesman for the power company, told ZNS Bahamas radio station.
Most people went to shelters as the storm approached. The hotels closed their doors and the residents covered their houses with wooden boards. However, it was predicted that many people would be left without a home.
Dorian's maximum sustained winds reached 185 mph on Sunday with gusts of up to 220 mph, matching the record for the strongest Atlantic hurricane on land to be recorded.
There is only one more powerful documented Atlantic storm, Hurricane Allen of 1980, with winds of up to 190 mph, although it did not touch the mainland with that force.
Meteorologists expect Dorian to start moving away from the Bahamas on Tuesday morning and turn northeast, parallel to the southeast coast of the United States.
A hurricane center warning warned that the east and central coast of Florida could register a small tornado sometime in the afternoon or Monday night.
The governor of South Carolina issued an order on Sunday for the mandatory eviction of the entire state coast. The order, which affects about 830,000 people, entered into force on Monday at noon, when state patrollers were expected to divert the circulation of large coastal highways so that all lanes would take inland.

"We can't make everyone happy, but we believe we can keep everyone alive," said McMaster.
The governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, ordered mandatory evictions for the Atlantic coast of the state, also starting Monday at noon.

In Florida, evictions were ordered in some vulnerable coastal areas. The governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, warned that the state could receive downpours, winds and floods this week.
Dorian made landfall on Sunday at Elbow Cay, on the Abaco Island, and later near Marsh Harbor. Cyclonic storm surges of 18 to 23 feet were reported.
The archipelago of the Bahamas is accustomed to hurricanes. It requires that homes have metal reinforcements for roof beams to withstand winds from a Category 4 hurricane, and compliance is generally strict for those who can afford it. The risks are greater in poor neighborhoods, where there are wooden houses in low elevation areas.
After leaving the Bahamas, Dorian is forecast to head north, passing 40 to 50 miles away from Florida, with hurricane force winds that extend 35 miles west.
The hurricane center issued an alert for the east coast of Florida, from Deerfield Beach north to Altamaha Sound in Georgia. A storm surge notice extended north of the Georgia coast to the Savannah River. Lake Okeechobee, in Florida, was also under tropical storm warning.
The traffic during the weekend in Florida was light despite multiple evacuation orders, unlike the chaos that occurred in 2017 by Hurricane Irma, when the unusually wide storm threatened the entire state.