Dorian lashes Carolinas after Bahamas havoc

CHARLESTON/MARSH HARBOUR, United States: Hurricane Dorian, which reduced much of the northern Bahamas to rubble and left at least 20 people dead, whipped the Carolinas on Thursday, bringing lashing winds, heavy rainfall and the threat of dangerous storm surge to the US east coast.

As a multi-national rescue effort ramped up for thousands of victims of Dorian on the northern Bahamas islands of Grand Bahama and Abaco, residents of the Carolinas were bracing for the Category 2 storm. In Charleston, South Carolina, wind gusts of 78 mph (126 kph) announced the storm’s approach, as did heavy rain and some flooding in low-lying downtown areas of the stately port city.

Many coastal Carolina residents heeded evacuation orders while others battened down their homes and businesses with plywood and prepared to ride out the tempest. At 11:00 am (1500 GMT), the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Dorian had been downgraded from a Category 3 to a Category 2 storm.

Dorian was a Category 5 hurricane -- the highest on the five-level wind scale -- when it slammed into the northern Bahamas, leaving a trail of unimaginable destruction.

An AFP team that flew over the town of Marsh Harbour in Abaco on Thursday saw scenes of catastrophic damage with hundreds of homes reduced to matchwood, cars submerged or overturned, fields of jumbled debris, widespread flooding and beached boats.

The NHC said Dorian was packing winds Thursday morning of 110 miles per hour (175 kilometers per hour), down from 115 mph (185 kph), and warned that storm surge could be as much as eight feet in some coastal areas.