Florida residents have been put on alert for a Category 3 hurricane.
Hurricane Dorian, currently drawing strength from the warm waters of the Atlantic, is barreling toward the Florida coast, where it is expected to make landfall as a Category 3 hurricane on Monday morning, with winds that could top 111 miles per hour.
Forecast models have shown divergent tracks for the storm’s path, so officials have warned Floridians from Miami to Jacksonville to prepare for a battering.
Tropical-storm-force winds could begin blowing into Florida as soon as Saturday night. The center of the hurricane, now a Category 1 storm, is predicted to pass over the Bahamas on Saturday and near the eastern coast of Florida early on Monday.
Forecasters predict that the hurricane will drop 4 to 8 inches of rain in Florida, with up to a foot expected in some isolated areas. Another serious concern is a storm surge, when water levels rise dramatically and push far inland, flooding neighborhoods. About half of hurricane deaths can be attributed to storm surges.
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has declared an emergency for counties in the storm’s path, and officials are warning all coastal residents to prepare for the storm by gathering food and other supplies.
“Because of the uncertainty in the track of this storm, every resident along the East Coast needs to be ready,” Jared Moskowitz, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, said.
Puerto Rico, riddled with anxiety from Maria, breathes a sigh of relief.
Hurricane Dorian struck Puerto Rico with a glancing blow on Wednesday, bringing back difficult memories as the first big storm to threaten the island since Hurricane Maria tore through two years ago.
Dorian has been unpredictable, frustrating forecasters and paralyzing Puerto Ricans for days as they watched the storm track shift toward the island. At one point, it looked as if Dorian would cut an eerily parallel path to Maria’s destruction, albeit with far less intensity. Puerto Ricans lined up outside big-box stores to stock up on supplies and swamped a mental health hotline to get help with their anxiety.
“So many people are hysterical, and it’s because Maria was strong,” said Carmen Vargas, 54, a resident of rural Guaynabo, P.R., near San Juan, the capital, as she vividly recalled the 2017 storm. “Even though we know it’s not the same, the memories come back, and the wounds reopen.”
[Read more about how the storm rattled nerves in Puerto Rico.]
An important warning system was not even close to being ready in Puerto Rico.
Even before Hurricane Dorian grazed Puerto Rico on Wednesday, some of the island’s emergency preparation systems had already fallen short despite a scramble to ready residents for disaster.
Last year, federal and local emergency managers announced with fanfare that they had installed the first technologically advanced emergency alert siren downstream of the Guajataca Dam, the largest dam in western Puerto Rico.
At the time, television news crews clamored to record the new alert as the words “This is a test — do not take action” bellowed through the lush green region. The system was seen as a big improvement for the vulnerable area, where hundreds of people live beside a dam that retains the largest water source for the western part of the island. The dam’s spillway cracked during Hurricane Maria, sending emergency workers rushing door to door to get people out of their homes.
The solar-powered and satellite-activated system was to employ seven permanent sirens to announce dam-break warnings and mudslides for miles, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced in September 2018. But two years after Hurricane Maria forced the evacuation of the residents near the Guajataca Dam, the bulk of the $1.2 million in siren equipment is still sitting in storage on the island.
The reason: The Puerto Rican government still has not granted itself the permits required to install all the alerts.
FEMA, local emergency management officials, city leaders and even the company that FEMA paid to install the sirens cannot explain why the installation has taken so long. The delays have raised questions about Puerto Rico’s hurricane response plan, even as Dorian barreled by the island this week.
“It is a very vulnerable area. The time the people there have to flee if there is a break is very minimal, because they are very close to the dam,” said Vicente Valle, the public safety director in Isabela, where the dam is. “This is serious, very serious. Those sirens are vital.”
[Read more about alert system delays on Puerto Rico.]
A shift in the storm’s path took the Virgin Islands by surprise.
By Wednesday morning, the eye of the storm had veered toward the United States Virgin Islands, where Dorian’s drenching rain and whipping winds surprised residents who felt unprepared to face the Category 1 hurricane. By the afternoon, the storm had rolled into warm Atlantic waters.
Electricity went out throughout the islands, where nearly 3,000 homes were still in need of repair after the 2017 hurricanes, said Stacey Plaskett, the Virgin Islands’ delegate to Congress. Though officials in the Virgin Islands said damage was widespread, it was far less severe than after Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
Roy Watlington, a retired physics professor who lives on St. Thomas, said he had placed too much confidence in forecasts that showed Dorian taking a different path through the Caribbean. He raced to put up his shutters as the winds started building.
“I think I know meteorology, so I was a little arrogant and I thought for sure it couldn’t make such a drastic shift,” said Mr. Watlington, whose mango tree lost its fruit but who avoided serious damage.
Sharon Coldren, who lives in the village of Coral Bay, St. John, said residents weren’t prepared when the storm veered toward the island. Among those caught out were the owners of the 50-odd boats in the harbor at Coral Bay, some of which had people living on them.
“We’re still limping after the incredible damage of Irma, and so none of us felt confident that there weren’t boats in the harbor that would break loose in the storm,” she said.
In the end, St. John was spared a direct hit, and the center of the storm instead passed over neighboring St. Thomas. However, Ms. Coldren remained concerned for island residents who were still living in houses that have not been properly restored after Irma.
“We’ll have to help them,” she said.
Reporting was contributed by Patricia Mazzei, Frances Robles, Mitch Smith and Freeman Rogers.
