Hurricane Dorian makes landfall in Bahamas; hundreds of flight cancelled

Washington, Sep 02: Powerful Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that devastated the island of Great Abaco in the Bahamas on Sunday, is slowly churning towards Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, where it is expected to bring normal life at a standstill.

With Hurricane Dorian approaching the US, the major airlines are canceling hundreds of flights.

In the northern stretches of the archipelago, hotels closed, residents boarded up homes and officials hired boats to move people to bigger islands.

Packing 185 mile-per-hour winds, Dorian first hit the Bahamas' Abaco Islands on Sunday and then took aim at Grand Bahama Island as it crept slowly westward.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center described Dorian, a category 5 storm with winds gusting as high as 220 m.p.h., as "catastrophic."

As of Sunday evening, there were 227 flight cancellations at Orlando's main airport and an additional 62 at Orlando Sanford International Airport, according to FlightAware.

The National Hurricane Center issued a hurricane watch for Florida's East Coast from Deerfield Beach north to the Volusia and Brevard county line. The same area was put under a storm surge watch. Lake Okeechobee was under a tropical storm watch.

Dorian is a powerful but small storm with hurricane force winds Sunday only extending 29 miles to the west, but they are expected to grow a bit. That makes forecasting its path delicate and difficult.