Mum's harrowing Facebook live amid 'unprecedented' hurricane
A mother has live streamed the terrifying moment she was trapped with her children in the middle of a vicious hurricane.
Hurricane Dorian is currently lashing Bahamas and the death toll reportedly sits at five, including a 7-year-old boy named Lachino Mcintosh, who drowned as his family were trying to escape the storm on Sunday (local time).
In the video taken on September 1, Jetta Clavi from Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas can be heard asking people to pray for her as she films the strong winds and rising water surrounding her family.
“Please God, pray for us,” she said.
As she points her camera toward the small steps she is standing on, surrounded by gushing water and explains that the roof of the house was ripped off in the storm.
“We are standing right here,” she said.
Then she desperately adds: “My baby is only four months old!”.
“People are trying to make it to the other side,” Ms Clavi said as she points the camera to nearby houses separated by rough water.
“But some people, the water just took them and they are the only people that got to make it over there,” she said before the video ends.
Ms Clavi has since posted on her Facebook that she is “stuck in an apartment” with 25 other people, including the elderly and children.
As the category four storm continues to pummel the islands, authorities are encouraging people to find floatation devices and keep hammers with them to break out of shelters if water rises.
Prime Minister Hubert Minnis addressed the public calling the devastation “unprecedented and extensive”.
“We are in the midst of a historic tragedy,” he added.
Rescue efforts on hold
The catastrophic hurricane continues to pound the northern Bahamas as one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever recorded.
Leaving in its wake wrecked homes, shredded roofs, tumbled cars and toppled power poles.
A radio station received more than 2000 distress messages, including reports of a 5-month-old baby stranded on a roof and a grandmother with six grandchildren who cut a hole in a roof to escape rising floodwaters.
Other reports involved a group of eight children and five adults stranded on a highway, and two storm shelters that flooded.
While the top sustained winds have decreased slightly from 320 km/h to 290 km/h early on Monday, forecasters predict a day-long assault on Sunday over Abaco Island.
Conditions are so dangerous that rescue crews have been forced to take shelter and hold off evacuations.
Bahamas radio station ZNS reported Police Chief Samuel Butler urged people to share their GPS coordinates, but said there would be a wait until weather conditions improve before rescue crews can reach them.
“We simply cannot get to you,” he said.
Where Hurricane Dorian will head next
Dorian is likely to begin pulling away from the Bahamas early on Tuesday (local time) and curving to the southeastern coast of the US.
The system is expected to spin 64 to 80 kilometres off Florida, with hurricane-force wind speeds extending about 56 kilometres to the west.
A mandatory evacuation of entire South Carolina coast took effect on Monday (local time) covering about 830,000 people.
Residents along the Atlantic coast in Georgia have been issued a mandatory evacuation starting at midday on Monday (local time) as well as those in some vulnerable coastal areas in Florida.
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned his state they could see heavy rain, winds and floods later in the week.
There was traffic chaos when transportation officials reversed all lanes on a busy interstate from Charleston to head inland earlier than planned due to heavy delays from evacuees and holidayers heading home on the Labor Day holiday.
“We can’t make everybody happy, but we believe we can keep everyone alive,” Governor Henry McMaster said.
—With AP
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