New video footage from the Bahamas shows a group of people swimming through raging floodwaters as the eye of Hurricane Dorian passed overhead. In the video, which you can see here from ABC News, weather conditions were briefly calm as the Category 5 storm moved over the Abaco Islands on Sunday.
ABC News correspondent Marcus Moore said that he and his news crew saw people leaving their houses that had been destroyed by Dorian.
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“We could hear them screaming and our producer — he was separated from them by this rushing, this torrent of water — he had to swim,” Moore said. “Because it was really a race against time, because we were in the eye of the storm. So it was calm, but we knew that within minutes that the rest of the storm would come through and it would be intense once again.”
The man, three women and two teenage girls made it through the rushing water safely but were shaken and upset.
“Moments after that they went to a bunker, a safe area that’s been set up here at the resort,” Moore said. “And my crew and I, we stayed in the three-story condo building where we rode out the rest of the storm.”
Dorian slammed into the Bahamas on Sunday as a Category 5 storm, killing at least five people on the Abaco Islands. Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said that the “destructive” storm is “unprecedented and extensive.” He vowed that the government “will bring to bear every resource possible and all of our collective energy to assist those in the devastated and affected areas.”
U.S. President Donald Trump addressed the storm on Twitter Monday, writing, “Pray for the people in the Bahamas. Being hit like never before, Category 5. Almost 200 m.p.h. winds.”
The storm registers as the second strongest to ever make landfall in the Bahamas, according to The Washington Post. The 185 mph recorded winds tied the record along with a Labor Day hurricane back in 1935 for highest wind speeds in the Atlantic Ocean.
Florida is bracing for impact next as Dorian begins its slow ascent up the eastern coast. Georgia and the Carolinas will also feel its impact as the week progresses, but to what extent remains unknown.
Governor Ron DeSantis issued a state of emergency for Florida over the weekend. Three other states, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, followed suit. Even Walt Disney World, despite being inland, is preparing for the potential of heavy rain and dangerous winds after announcing the early closures of its parks on Tuesday.
