Parts of Florida are currently being evacuated, while Georgia and the Carolinas are bracing for wind and flooding. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Dorian made landfall on Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands as a Category 5 storm on Sunday with maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour (295 km per hour) and gusts of more than 220 mph (354 kph).
NOAA said in a statement: “This is a life-threatening situation.
“Residents in the Abacos should stay in their shelter.
“Do not venture into the eye if it passes over your location.
It made a second landfall on Great Abaco Island near Marsh Harbor.
Millions of people from Florida to North Carolina were bracing to see whether Dorian avoids a US landfall and instead heads north into the Atlantic Ocean.
The storm could bring torrential rains and damaging winds, and “a Florida landfall is still a distinct possibility,” the Miami-based NHC warned.
Residents on Abaco posted video on social media showing flood waters halfway up the sides of single-family homes with parts of the roofs torn off.
Car alarms blared across the island, which was littered with twisted metal and splintered wood.
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“The other day the prime minister came out and said everybody in Abaco should leave,” Mr Creenan said by phone. “But there’s no place to go.”
With winds at 185 mph, Dorian ties with Gilbert (1988), Wilma (2005) and the 1935 Labor Day hurricane for the second strongest Atlantic hurricane on record based on maximum sustained winds.
Allen in 1980 was the most powerful with 190-mph winds, the NHC said.
Dorian is the strongest hurricane on record to hit the northwestern Bahamas.
In Florida, at least seven counties issued mandatory evacuations for some residents, including those in mobile homes, on barrier islands and in low-lying areas.
Palm Beach County, the third most populated county and home to President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, was among those with partial mandatory evacuations.
Other counties announced voluntary evacuations.
Mr Trump said on Sunday that the storm would likely impact the eastern seaboard from Florida to North Carolina.
He said during a briefing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): ”This looks monstrous.
“This looks like it could be larger than all of them.”
FEMA is moving food, water and generators into the southeastern United States, said acting Administrator Peter Gaynor.
He told CNN: ”When it comes to response, we are more than ready to deal with anything that Dorian delivers us this year, or any other storm that may come this season.”
Meanwhile, a new tropical storm has formed southwest of Mexico and is expected to become a hurricane on Monday.
Tropical Storm Juliette is 455 miles (735 km) from Manzanillo, Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph), the NHC said on Sunday.