FREEPORT, Bahamas: Jet skis and a huge bulldozer were being used to rescue victims of Hurricane Dorian as the US Coast Guard, Britain's Royal Navy and a handful of aid groups tried to get food and medicine to survivors and take the most desperate people to safety.
Airports were flooded and roads impassable after the most powerful storm to hit the Bahamas in recorded history parked over Abaco and Grand Bahama islands, pounding them with winds up to 185 mph (295 kph) and torrential rain before finally moving into open waters Tuesday on a course toward Florida.
People on the US coast made final preparations for a storm with winds at a still-dangerous 110 mph (175 kph), making it a Category 2 storm.
At least seven deaths were reported in the Bahamas, with the full scope of the disaster still unknown.
The storm's punishing winds and muddy brown floodwaters destroyed or severely damaged thousands of homes, crippled hospitals and trapped people in attics.
"It's total devastation. It's decimated. Apocalyptic,'' said Lia Head-Rigby, who helps run a local hurricane relief group and flew over the Bahamas' hard-hit Abaco Islands. "It's not rebuilding something that was there. We have to start again.''
She said her representative on Abaco told her there were "a lot more dead", although she had no numbers as to the bodies being gathered.
The Bahamas' prime minister also expected more deaths and predicted that rebuilding would require "a massive, coordinated effort.''
"We are in the midst of one of the greatest national crises in our country's history,'' Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said at a news conference. "No effort or resources will be held back.''
A man talks on his mobile phone on a flooded road next to a catamaran that was thrown onshore by the Hurricane Dorian, near highway close Freeport, Grand Bahama, Bahamas, on Tuesday. Relief officials reported scenes of utter ruin in parts of the Bahamas, after the most powerful storm on record to ever hit the islands. (Photo: AP)
Five Coast Guard helicopters ran near-hourly flights to the stricken Abaco, flying more than 20 injured people to the capital's main hospital. British sailors were also rushing in aid. A few private aid groups also tried to reach the battered islands in the northern Bahamas.
"We don't want people thinking we've forgotten them. ... We know what your conditions are,'' Tammy Mitchell of the Bahamas' National Emergency Management Agency told ZNS Bahamas radio station.
With their heads bowed against heavy wind and rain, rescuers began evacuating people from the storm's aftermath across Grand Bahama island late on Tuesday, using jet skis, boats and even a huge bulldozer that cradled children and adults in its digger as it churned through deep waters and carried them to safety.
One rescuer gently scooped up an elderly man in his arms and walked toward a pickup truck waiting to evacuate him and others to higher ground. (continues below)
Red Cross spokesman Matthew Cochrane said more than 13,000 houses, or about 45% of the homes on Grand Bahama and Abaco, were believed to be severely damaged or destroyed. U.N. officials said more than 60,000 people on the hard-hit islands will need food, and the Red Cross said some 62,000 will need clean drinking water.
Over 2 million people along the coast in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina were warned to evacuate. While the threat of a direct hit on Florida had all but evaporated, Dorian was expected to pass dangerously close to Georgia and South Carolina, aand perhaps strike North Carolina, on Thursday or Friday. The hurricane's eye passed to the east of Cape Canaveral, Florida, early on Wednesday.
Even if landfall does not occur, the system is likely to cause storm surge and severe flooding, the US National Hurricane Center said.