Hurricane Joaquin is threatening to batter the Bahamas, bringing dangerous seas, strong winds and flooding to the central islands later today.
The category 3 storm is rapidly intensifying and is expected to build to category 4 over the next few hours.
The Bahamas are on high alert and Bahamasair has cancelled some flights for tomorrow to some islands.
The US National Hurricane Center warned Joaquin could become ‘a major hurricane’ by Friday.
It is expected to skim the northeast of the Bahamas, after which it will turn north and run along the US east coast tomorrow and into the weekend. One likely scenario is that it will make landfall between North Carolina and southern New Jersey on Sunday.
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe issued state of emergency last night throughout the entire state in response to the recent flooding and in preparation for Joaquin.
Governors in surrounding mid-Atlantic states are closely monitoring the progress of the storm even though emergency declarations have not been issued.
Geoffrey Greene, a senior forecaster with the Bahamas Meteorology Department, said he was ‘very concerned’ about some of the smaller islands in Joaquin’s path, such as San Salvador, Rum Cay and Cat Island, which all have small populations.
Officials in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, which were all hit by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, warned residents to begin making preparations.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) is following the progress of Joaquin and preparing in case it makes landfall in the US.
