The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Dorian is “heading for Nova Scotia in a hurry” and is expected to arrive late Saturday as it moves with maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour.

Dorian made landfall over Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, Friday morning after weakening into a Category 1 storm and generating tornadoes, severe storm surges and flooding in coastal areas in North and South Carolina.

After landfall, Dorian began moving out into the Atlantic ocean and continued its trek up the U.S. eastern seaboard, the NHC said. The storm had devastated much of the Bahamas days earlier.

The NHC said the storm was about 200 kilometers northeast of Cape Hatteras Friday afternoon with maximum sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour. The winds are expected to slowly weaken through Saturday.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said there was “significant concern about hundreds of people trapped on Ocracoke Island” in the Outer Banks region.

“We are flooding like crazy,” Ocracoke Island bookstore owner Leslie Lanier texted. “I have been here 32 years and not seen this.”

Steve Harris, who has been on Ocracoke for most of the last 19 years, said, “We went from almost no water to four to six feet in a matter of minutes.”

Elsewhere, thousands of people in the Bahamas have begun the long and painful struggle to rebuild their lives following the onslaught of the hurricane, which was an extremely powerful Category 5 storm upon its arrival several days ago.

International search and rescue teams are looking for survivors.

The death toll in the Bahamas is 43, but Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said he believes the final number of people killed “will be staggering.”
 

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