Deadly hurricane slams Florida with strong winds, rain

The University of Florida canceled classes for Tuesday and Wednesday and more than 10 Florida airports have been shut down Hurricane Dorian pummeled Florida with strong winds and bands of heavy rain.

Dorian barreled to shore Sunday afternoon in the Bahamas as a Category 5, making the strongest Atlantic hurricane landfall on record.

The storm hovered over the Bahamas for nearly two days, causing unprecedented destruction, submerging an airport, leveling buildings and killing at least seven people on the Abaco Islands. Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis called the islands “decimated” and said “we can expect more deaths to be recorded.”

Now a Category 2 with sustained winds of 110 mph, the slow-moving storm is expected to turn its wrath on Georgia and the Carolinas later this week.

As Dorian picked up speed and inched away from the Bahamas Tuesday, it moved northwest to Florida, lashing the state’s east coast with powerful winds.

Flash flooding, storm surge, strong winds and tornadoes are all possible as Dorian moves parallel to — but offshore of — the east coast of Florida from Tuesday night through Wednesday night.

“If you are in the evacuation zones” along the coast, “the time to leave is now,” South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said Tuesday, warning that a western shift of just a few miles could bring enormous damage to the state.

“I have never seen destruction like this on this scale on an island before,” ABC News correspondent Marcus Moore told “Good Morning America” Tuesday from Marsh Harbour, a town in the Abaco Islands.

A U.S. State Department official said the Abaco Islands’ Leonard M. Thompson International Airport is completely underwater.

Dorian then came to a grinding halt on Monday morning and remained at a virtual standstill over Grand Bahama, pummeling the island with howling winds and fierce rain.

There were reports of heavy flooding in Freeport, the main city on Grand Bahama, where Grand Bahama International Airport and the city’s one-story hospital are inundated with water and the main highway has turned into a river, leaving some people trapped, according to the State Department official.

“Communication is down, we do not know what’s going on right now,” Iram Lewis, a Member of Parliament in the Bahamas, told “GMA” Tuesday. “Never seen anything like this in my life.”

The U.S. is providing humanitarian assistance to the Bahamas, beginning with the deployment of a Disaster Assistance Response Team, according to the State Department. Minnis also said Tuesday evening a Royal Navy vessel was arriving soon to deliver food to those in Abaco.