Jeanne lashes Bahamas
Hurricane Jeanne lashed the Bahamas with violent winds and torrential rains today, making a direct hit on Abaco island and threatening the country’s second largest city of Freeport.
Hundreds of people took refuge in emergency shelters.
Jeanne’s fierce eye made a direct hit on north-western Abaco island today morning, said Jorge Aguirre, a meteorologist at the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami, Florida.
“It’s moving right over Abaco island,” he said. “They’re right at the core of the eye right now.”
Around 700 evacuees were riding out the storm at a school in the town of Marsh Harbour on Abaco island, where Jeanne was expected to make a direct hit and strengthen to a major hurricane before hitting Florida’s south east coast.
Three million people were told to evacuate their homes in Florida which is bracing for its fourth battering from a hurricane this year. No state has been struck by four hurricanes in one season since Texas in 1886.
Jeanne’s sustained winds increased to 105mph early today before it hit Abaco, which has a population of 20,000, and then was forecast to tear into Grand Bahama, where more than 70,000 live, many of them in Freeport.
Officials urged people to evacuate low-lying homes, and shelters were set up in schools and churches on the north-western islands of Abaco, Eleuthera and Grand Bahama.
Jeanne was upon the Bahamas three weeks after the low-lying island chain took a beating from Frances, which killed two people and damaged thousands of homes. It toppled rows of power lines, flattened homes and uprooted trees during a two-day lashing of Grand Bahama island.
Jeanne was headed for the Bahamas following a devastating hit as a tropical storm last weekend on Haiti, where floods killed more than 1,100 and left more than 1,250 missing. The southern Bahamian islands were under a storm warning when Jeanne brushed past into the Atlantic, then made a loop and headed back west.
At 1pm Irish time Jeanne was just over Marsh Harbour on Abaco island, and 190 miles east of Florida’s south east coast.
Forecasters at the US National Hurricane Centre said Jeanne was likely to strengthen to a major hurricane later today. The storm was forecast to stir up dangerous surf and rip currents, and dump up to 10 inches of rain.
