Dorian strikes Bahamas with record fury as Category 5 storm
By RAMÓN ESPINOSA Associated Press
McLEAN’S TOWN CAY, Bahamas (AP) — Hurricane Dorian struck the northern Bahamas on Sunday as a catastrophic Category 5 storm, its record 185 mph winds ripping off roofs and tearing down power lines as hundreds hunkered in schools, churches and other shelters.
Dorian hit land in Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands at 12:40 p.m., and then made a second landfall near Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island at 2 p.m., after authorities made last-minute pleas for those in low-lying areas to evacuate.
With its maximum sustained winds of 185 mph (295 kph), it tied the record for the most powerful Atlantic hurricane ever to come ashore, equaling the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, before the storms were named.
Millions from Florida to the Carolinas kept a wary eye on the slow-moving Dorian amid indications it would veer sharply northeastward after passing the Bahamas and track up the U.S. Southeast seaboard. But authorities warned that even if its core did not make U.S. landfall, the potent storm would likely hammer the coast with powerful winds and heavy surf.
With gusts over 220 mph, Dorian was moving west at 7 mph (11 kph). “Catastrophic conditions” were reported in The Abaco Islands and the storm was expected to cross Grand Bahama later in the day “with all its fury,” the center said.
Dorian’s power was second only to Hurricane Allen in 1980, with its 190 mph winds. That storm did not make landfall.
“It’s going to be really, really bad for the Bahamas,” Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said.
In the northern stretches of the archipelago, hotels closed, residents boarded up homes and officials hired boats to move people to bigger islands.
Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis warned that any “who do not evacuate are placing themselves in extreme danger and can expect a catastrophic consequence.”
Still, dozens ignored evacuation orders, officials said, despite the danger.
“The end could be fatal,” said Samuel Butler, assistant police commissioner. “We ask you, we beg you, we plead with you to get to a place of safety.”
Bahamas radio station ZNS Bahamas reported that a mother and her child in central Grand Bahama called to say they were sheltering in a closet and seeking help from police.
Silbert Mills, owner of the Bahamas Christian Network, said trees and power lines were torn down in The Abaco Islands and some roads were impassable.
“The winds are howling like we’ve never, ever experienced before,” said Mills, 59, who planned to ride out the hurricane with his family in the concrete home he built 41 years ago in central Abaco.
Among those refusing to leave were 32 people in Sweetings Cay, and a group that sought safety in Old Bahama Bay resort, which officials said was not safe.
Butler said officials were closing some roads with heavy equipment and warned that those on the other side would be stranded until Dorian passed. The government has opened 14 shelters across the Bahamas.
“We cannot stress the amount of devastation and catastrophic impact that Hurricane Dorian is expected to bring,” said Shavonne Moxey-Bonamy, the Bahamas chief meteorologist.
Earlier Saturday, small skiffs shuttled between outlying fishing communities and McLean’s Town, a settlement of a few dozen homes at the eastern end of Grand Bahama island, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Florida’s Atlantic coast. Most came from Sweetings Cay, a fishing town of a few hundred about 5 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.
“We’re not taking no chances,” said Margaret Bassett, a ferry boat driver for the Deep Water Cay resort. “They said evacuate, you have to evacuate.”
But Jack Pittard, a 76-year-old American who has visited the Bahamas for 40 years, said he has decided to ride out the storm — his first hurricane — in The Abaco Islands.
A short video from Pittard about 2:30 p.m. showed winds shaking his home and ripping off its siding.
He said he battened up his house and is spending the storm in a nearby duplex behind a group of cottages owned by a friend. He noted the ocean is quite deep near where he’s staying, and there’s a cay that provides protection, so he doesn’t expect significant storm surge.
“I’m not afraid of dying here,” said Pittard, who lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Meanwhile, Klotzbach, the hurricane researcher, warned of Dorian’s catastrophic strength: “Abaco is going to get wiped.”
Over two or three days, the slow-moving hurricane could dump as much as 4 feet (1 meter) of rain, unleash devastating winds and whip up a dangerous storm surge, said private meteorologist Ryan Maue.
Government spokesman Kevin Harris said Dorian was expected to affect 73,000 residents and 21,000 homes. Authorities closed airports for The Abaco Islands, Grand Bahama and Bimini, but Lynden Pindling International Airport in the capital of Nassau remained open.
Jeffrey Allen, who lives in Freeport on Grand Bahama, said he had learned after several storms that damage predictions sometimes don’t materialize, but he still takes precautions.
“It’s almost as if you wait with anticipation, hoping that it’s never as bad as they say it will be. However, you prepare for the worst nonetheless,” he said.
The Bahamas archipelago is frequently hit by hurricanes. Homes are required to have metal reinforcements for roof beams to withstand winds into the upper limits of a Category 4 hurricane, and compliance is generally tight for those who can afford it. Risks are higher in poorer communities, where wooden homes are generally in lower-lying areas.
After the Bahamas, the slow-crawling storm was forecast to turn sharply and skirt toward the U.S. coast, staying just off Florida and Georgia on Tuesday and Wednesday and then buffeting South Carolina and North Carolina on Thursday.
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 also put under a storm surge watch. Lake Okeechobee was put under a tropical storm watch.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned the state’s densely populated Atlantic coast: “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
He suspended tolls on the Florida Turnpike and other roads, including Alligator Alley, from Fort Lauderdale to Naples, to keep traffic flowing for evacuees.
DeSantis noted some forecast models still bring Dorian close to or even onto the Florida peninsula.
“That could produce life-threatening storm surge and hurricane force winds,” DeSantis said. “That cone of uncertainty still includes a lot of areas on the east coast of Florida and even into central and north Florida, so we are staying prepared and remaining vigilant.”
Palm Beach County ordered a mandatory evacuation for the eastern half of the county as of 1 p.m. Sunday. That included mobile homes, substandard housing, low-lying areas prone to flooding and homes along the Intracoastal Waterway and on barrier islands.
For Florida, it could come down to a handful of miles between relative safety and potential devastation. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Dorian is forecast to be 40 to 50 miles off the Florida with hurricane-force wind speeds extending about 35 miles to the west.
National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham urged residents not to bet on safety just because the specific forecast track has the storm just a bit offshore. Don’t focus on the track, he said, but the larger cone of possibility that includes landfall.
Complicating matters is that with every new forecast, “we keep nudging (Dorian’s track) a little bit to the left” which is closer to the Florida coast, Graham said.
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.
President Donald Trump already declared a state of emergency and was briefed about what he called a “monstrous” storm.
“We don’t know where it’s going to hit but we have an idea, probably a little bit different than the original course,” Trump said. “But it can change its course again and it can go back more toward Florida.”
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency, mobilizing state resources to prepare for potential storm effects. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said the state could see heavy rain, winds and floods.
The hurricane upended some Labor Day holiday weekend plans in the U.S.: Major airlines allowed travelers to change reservations without fees, big cruise lines rerouted their ships and Cumberland Island National Seashore off Georgia closed to visitors. Disney World and Orlando’s other resorts held off announcing any closings.
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Associated Press writers Tim Aylen in McLean’s Town Cay; Seth Borenstein in Washington; Michael Weissenstein in Havana, Cuba; Dánica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Adriana Gómez Licón in Miami; Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida; Julie Walker in New York; Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland; and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed.
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For AP’s complete coverage of the hurricane: https://apnews.com/Hurricanes

1. Whitewater rafter thrown into river, dies
   OHIOPYLE, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a man on a whitewater rafting trip was thrown into a western Pennsylvania river and died after his foot apparently became trapped under a rock.
   Ohiopyle State Park operations manager Ken Bisbee told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the man was part of an eight-member group that had rented two rafts from White Water Adventurers on Saturday.
   Bisbee said the county 911 emergency center contacted the park at about 1 p.m. Saturday about a raft that had overturned at River’s End Rapid on the Youghiogheny (yawk-ah-GEN’-nee) River.
   He said the man had apparently put a foot down on the river bottom, something rafters are typically warned against doing if they are thrown into the water. His body was recovered at about 2:30 p.m. Saturday. His name hasn’t been released.

Missing child still sought after woman, car located
PENN HILLS, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a woman and a vehicle being sought in a reported child abduction in western Pennsylvania have been located, but the girl remains missing.
Allegheny County police say Penn Hills officers were called to a home at about 5 p.m. Saturday where the biological father of the child said she had been taken by a woman.
An Amber Alert was issued and investigators said the car was spotted about a half-hour later in Monroeville. Police said the woman was “in the company of investigators” but the child is still being sought.
Investigators say Nalani Johnson, who will be 2 years old later this month, has short curly black hair and brown eyes and was last wearing a black shirt and a skirt with a floral pattern and black sandals.

6 teens shot at end of high school football game in Alabama
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) — A 17-year-old student was arrested Saturday in connection with a shooting that happened at a high school football game in Alabama, leaving at least 10 people injured.
Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste tells news outlets that six people were directly shot Friday and one person had a seizure shortly after the shooting at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, a city-owned venue hosting a game between LeFlore High School and Williamson High School.
In a post on Twitter, police said authorities arrested a male teenager on nine counts of attempted murder. News outlets report the teenager surrendered Saturday morning. It was unknown if the suspect has an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Battiste said the shooting stemmed from a fight, and the suspect pulled a gun and started “indiscriminately shooting.”
“This is a cowardly act by an individual who didn’t know how to deal with a situation,” Battiste said.
“It’s not acceptable in our community, we won’t tolerate it,” he said. “We’re going to ask that the community help us by identifying those individuals that they know that bring this type of foolishness out to these type of events.”
Some of the victims have been released from the hospital, but it is not clear how many.
“Our children and their families deserve to enjoy a high school football game or any public event without the thought of gun violence. As a community, we will heal. As a community, we have to get the guns out of the hands of our youth,” Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said in a statement.
Investigators have reviewed surveillance video, which clearly shows the 17-year-old suspect firing the shots, Battiste said.
Police believe the teenager was the only shooter, but the police chief said investigators also believe there are adults who knew something would be happening at the game and urged them to come forward with information.
The shooting remains under investigation.

Dorian closes in on Bahamas as dangerous Category 5 storm
By RAMON ESPINOSA Associated Press
McLEAN’S TOWN CAY, Bahamas (AP) — An already dangerous Hurricane Dorian intensified yet again Sunday as it closed in on the northern Bahamas, threatening to batter islands with Category 5-strength winds, pounding waves and torrential rain as people hunkered down in schools, churches and other shelters.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Dorian’s maximum sustained winds have increased to 175 mph (280 kph), up from 160 mph (260 kph). It is moving west at 8 mph (13 kph). “Devastating hurricane conditions” are expected in The Abaco Islands early Sunday and across Grand Bahama later in the day, the center said.
Millions from Florida to the Carolinas kept a wary eye on Dorian, meanwhile, amid indications it would veer sharply northeastward after passing the Bahamas and track up the U.S. Southeast seaboard. But authorities warned even if its core did not make U.S. landfall and stayed offshore, the potent storm would likely hammer U.S. coastal areas with powerful winds and heavy surf.
In the northern stretches of the Bahamas archipelago, hotels closed, residents boarded up homes and officials hired boats to move people from low-lying areas to bigger islands as Dorian approached.
Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis warned that Dorian is a “dangerous storm” and said any “who do not evacuate are placing themselves in extreme danger and can expect a catastrophic consequence.”
Small skiffs shuttled Saturday between outlying fishing communities and McLean’s Town, a settlement of a few dozen homes at the eastern end of Grand Bahama island, about 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Florida’s Atlantic coast. Most people came from Sweeting Cay, a fishing town of a few hundred people about 5 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.
“We’re not taking no chances,” said Margaret Bassett, a ferry boat driver for the Deep Water Cay resort. “They said evacuate, you have to evacuate.”
But Jack Pittard, an American who has been traveling to the Bahamas for some 40 years, said he has decided to ride out the storm in The Abaco Islands. He said it’s the first hurricane he will experience in his life.
“There’s fear,” he said in a phone interview Sunday morning as the eyewall approached the islands. “I’m worried about destruction of property, but I don’t believe there’s going to be loss of lives here.”
Pittard, 76, said he battened up his house and is spending the storm in a nearby duplex behind a group of cottages that a friend owns. He noted the ocean is quite deep near where he’s staying, and there’s a cay that provides protection, so he doesn’t expect significant storm surge.
“I’m not afraid of dying here,” said Pittard, who lives in Lexington, Kentucky.
Over two or three days, the slow-moving hurricane could dump as much as 4 feet (1 meter) of rain, unleash devastating winds and whip up a dangerous storm surge, said private meteorologist Ryan Maue, seconding some of the most reliable computer models.
Government spokesman Kevin Harris said Dorian was expected to impact some 73,000 residents and 21,000 homes. Authorities closed airports for The Abaco Islands, Grand Bahama and Bimini, but Lynden Pindling International Airport at the capital of Nassau remained open.
Jeffrey Allen, who lives in Freeport on Grand Bahama, said he had learned after several storms that sometimes predictions of damage don’t materialize, but he still takes precautions.
“It’s almost as if you wait with anticipation, hoping that it’s never as bad as they say it will be. However, you prepare for the worst nonetheless,” he said.
The Bahamas archipelago is frequently hit by hurricanes. Construction codes require homes to have metal reinforcements for roof beams to withstand winds into the upper limits of a Category 4 hurricane, and compliance is generally tight for residents who can afford it. Risks are higher in poorer communities, which typically have wooden homes and are generally in lower-lying areas.
The slow-crawling storm was predicted to take until Monday afternoon to pass over the Bahamas, and then turn sharply and skirt up the U.S. coast, staying just off Florida and Georgia on Tuesday and Wednesday and then buffeting South Carolina and North Carolina on Thursday.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned residents along that state’s densely populated Atlantic coast, “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
He noted some forecast models still bring Dorian close to or even onto the Florida peninsula.
“That could produce life-threatening storm surge and hurricane force winds,” DeSantis said. “That cone of uncertainty still includes a lot of areas on the east coast of Florida and even into central and north Florida, so we are staying prepared and remaining vigilant.”
Palm Beach County announced a mandatory evacuation for the eastern half of the county beginning at 1 p.m. Sunday after the morning forecast put the area in a tropical storm warning. The evacuation includes mobile homes, substandard housing, low lying areas prone to flooding and homes along the Intracoastal Waterway and on barrier islands.
In Miami, Carmen Segura said she had installed hurricane shutters at her house, bought extra gas and secured water and food for at least three days. She felt well prepared and less worried, given the latest forecasts, but still was uneasy given the storm’s unpredictability.
“Part of me still feels like: So, now what?” Segura said.
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency, mobilizing state resources to prepare for potential storm effects. President Donald Trump already declared a state of emergency and was brief late Saturday about the storm.
The hurricane upended some Labor Day holiday weekend plans in the U.S.: Major airlines allowed travelers to change their reservations without fees, big cruise lines rerouted their ships and Cumberland Island National Seashore off Georgia closed to visitors. Disney World and Orlando’s other resorts held off announcing any closings.
Sherry Atkinson, who manages a hotel on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, said the hurricane wasn’t spoiling holiday vacations for guests.
“So far, there hasn’t even been a snippet of conversation about evacuations,” she said.
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Associated Press writers Tim Aylen in McLean’s Town Cay; Seth Borenstein in Washington; Michael Weissenstein in Havana, Cuba; Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico; Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami; Brendan Farrington in Tallahassee, Florida; Julie Walker in New York; Michael Kunzelman in College Park, Maryland; and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this report.
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For AP’s complete coverage of the hurricane: https://apnews.com/Hurricanes

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s call for new “mental institutions” to combat mass shootings is drawing pushback from many health officials. They say the president is wrongly associating mental illness with violence. In the weeks following the deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton, the president has been placing more emphasis on the problem of mental illness.

MIAMI (AP) — President Donald Trump has declared an emergency in the state of Florida as it braces for the brunt of Hurricane Dorian. Trump, whose Florida properties could sustain damage, has warned that Dorian could be an “absolute monster.” In issuing the emergency declaration, Trump has ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local efforts responding to Dorian.

PROSPERITY, Pa. (AP) — Authorities say a coal mine worker was killed when a long wall of coal collapsed on top of him at a mine in western Pennsylvania. The wall collapsed around 6 p.m. Thursday in the Enlow Fork Mine in Prosperity, about 40 miles (64kilometers) southwest of Pittsburgh. State police says 25-year-old Tanner Lee McFarland of Washington, Pennsylvania, was killed in the accident. But the cause and manner of death have not been determined. No other injuries were reported in the collapse.