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Hurricane Hits Abaco Island in Bahamas

Posted on: Saturday, 25 September 2004, 06:00 CDT

FREEPORT, Bahamas - Hurricane Jeanne lashed the Bahamas with violent winds and torrential rains Saturday, making a direct hit on Abaco island and threatening the country's second-largest city, Freeport. Hundreds of people took refuge in emergency shelters.

Jeanne's fierce eye made a direct hit on northwestern Abaco island Saturday morning, said Jorge Aguirre, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. The storm was forecast to stir up dangerous surf and rip currents, and dump up to 10 inches of rain.

About 700 evacuees were riding out the storm at a school in Marsh Harbor, a town on Abaco island.

"The wind is howling," said Richard Fawkes, a 52-year-old Bahamian. "It's really coming with intensity now."

He said the metal shutters on the windows were rattling in the fierce gusts and that water was seeping inside.

Jeanne's sustained winds increased to 105 mph early Saturday before it hit Abaco, which has a population of 20,000. Forecasters said the hurricane will next tear into Grand Bahama, where more than 70,000 live, many of them in Freeport. The storm was afterward expected to strengthen and head toward Florida's southeast coast.

Bahamian officials urged people to evacuate low-lying homes, and shelters were set up in schools and churches on the northwestern islands of Eleuthera, Abaco and Grand Bahama.

Fawkes said he boarded up his beachfront home, which made it through Hurricane Frances largely unscathed three weeks ago, with only some shingles blown off. But this time he worried about rising waters; forecasts said Jeanne could send the sea surging up to eight feet above normal tide levels.

"We can't do anything if the water rises," Fawkes said. "I think people have a lot of battle fatigue from Frances."

Jeanne hit the Bahamas three weeks after the low-lying island chain took a beating from Frances, which killed two people and damaged thousands of homes. Frances toppled rows of power lines, flattened homes and uprooted trees during a two-day lashing of Grand Bahama island.

Many homes still have roofs patched with plastic sheeting, and some homeless residents are still living with relatives or neighbors.

Jeanne struck the Bahamas after devastating last weekend Haiti last weekend while it was a tropical storm. Floods in Haiti killed more than 1,100 and left more than 1,250 missing.

On Friday, people waited in long lines at gas stations in Freeport, crowded into stores to stock up on food and water, and rushed to secure plywood over their windows.

At 8 a.m. EDT, Jeanne was just over Marsh Harbor on Abaco island, and 190 miles east of Florida's southeast coast. It was moving west near 14 mph. Hurricane-force winds extended 70 miles from the center and tropical storm-force winds to 205 miles.

A hurricane warning covered the northwest Bahamas and parts of Florida's east coast, and a tropical storm watch the central Bahamian islands and parts of the northeast Florida and Georgia coasts. Tropical storm-force winds were forecast in the Bahamian capital of Nassau.

About 800,000 residents evacuated their homes in Florida.

Several cruise ships were diverted, and Grand Bahama's airport was closed Friday night.

"We're shutting down everything," said Christina Williams, an employee at the Great Abaco Beach Hotel. "All the guests left yesterday."

She said the only remaining guests were insurance adjusters who planned to ride out the storm.

The repeated hurricanes are disrupting tourism, which the government says accounts for more than half the jobs in this country of 300,000 people. Some hotels damaged by Francis remain closed.

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On the Net:

National Hurricane Center, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

Weather Underground storm site, http://www.wunderground.com/tropical

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