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Hurricane Dorian is gaining strength at it approaches Florida, with forecasters warning it could grow into a dangerous storm before it hits the Sunshine State.
The storm has moved out into open waters after hitting Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, where it caused power cuts and flooding in places.
The US National Hurricane Centre said Dorian would probably strengthen into a dangerous Category 4 storm as it passes near or over the northern Bahamas on Saturday, before hitting Florida on Sunday.
Along much of Florida’s east coast, shoppers rushed to stock up on food and emergency supplies at supermarkets and hardware stores and picked the shelves clean of bottled water. Lines formed at service stations as motorists topped off their tanks and filled gasoline cans.
Forecasters said the Category 1 hurricane is expected to bulk up with winds of 130 mph (209 kph) before broadsiding the US on Monday somewhere between the Florida Keys and southern Georgia — a 500-mile stretch that reflected the high degree of uncertainty this far out.
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Donald Trump said Florida is “going to be totally ready.” He tweeted: “Be prepared and please follow State and Federal instructions, it will be a very big Hurricane, perhaps one of the biggest!”
As of late Thursday morning, Dorian was centred about 220 miles (355 kilometres) northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, its winds blowing at 85 mph (140 kph) as it moved northwest at 13 mph (20 kph).
The National Hurricane Centre’s projected track had the storm blowing ashore midway along the Florida peninsula, southeast of Orlando and well north of Miami. But because of the difficulty of predicting its course this far ahead, the “cone of uncertainty” covered nearly the entire state.
Also imperilled were the Bahamas, with Dorian’s projected track running just to the north of Great Abaco and Grand Bahama islands.
Puerto Rico seemed to be spared any heavy wind and rain, a huge relief on an island where blue tarps still cover some 30,000 homes nearly two years after Hurricane Maria.
The island’s 3.2 million inhabitants also depend on an unstable power grid that remains prone to outages since it was destroyed by Maria.
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Several hundred customers were without power across Puerto Rico, said Ángel Figueroa, president of a utility workers union. Police said an 80-year-old man in the town of Bayamón died after he fell trying to climb to his roof to clear it of debris ahead of the storm.
Additional reporting by AP. Please allow a moment for our liveblog to load
Hurricane Dorian is gaining strength at it approaches Florida, with forecasters warning it could grow into a dangerous storm before it hits the Sunshine State.
The storm has moved out into open waters after hitting Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, where it caused power cuts and flooding in places.
The US National Hurricane Centre said Dorian would probably strengthen into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane as it passes near or over the northern Bahamas on Saturday, before hitting Florida on Sunday.
Here are some of the president's other decidedly unhelpful comments on the tropical storm.
Having already joked about trading Puerto Rico for Greenland last week, Trump lied about the amount of US humanitarian aid given to the territory after Hurricane Maria hit in September 2017 and branded the outspoken mayor of San Juan Carmen Yulin Cruz "incompetent", the president labelled the embattled Caribbean isle "one of the most corrupt places on earth".
New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among those to hit back.
The hurricane, expected to whip its way into a Category 3 by the weekend, was a mere Category 1 storm on Wednesday when it swirled through the islands of the northeastern Caribbean, causing power outages and flooding in places but doing no major damage.
"We're happy because there are no damages to report," said William Solis, the mayor of the small Puerto Rican island of Culebra. He said only one community lost power.
Dorian caused an islandwide blackout in St Thomas and St John in the US Virgin Islands and scattered power outages in St Croix, government spokesman Richard Motta said. The storm also downed trees and at least one electric pole in St Thomas, he said, adding that there were no reports of major flooding.
"We are grateful that it wasn't a stronger storm," he said.
There were no reports of serious damage in the British Virgin Islands, where governor Augustus Jaspert said crews were already clearing roads and inspecting infrastructure by late Wednesday afternoon.
Early Thursday, Dorian was centered about 150 miles north-northwest of San Juan. The National Hurricane Center said its top winds were blowing at 85mph as the storm moved northwest at 13mph.
Dennis Feltgen, a Hurricane Center meteorologist in Miami, said earlier that Dorian would strengthen and could hit anywhere from South Florida to South Carolina.
"This will be a large storm approaching the Southeast," he said.
People in Florida have been preparing for a possible Labor Day strike from Dorian, with county governments along the state's east-central coast distributing sandbags and many residents rushing to warehouse retailers to load up on water, canned food and emergency supplies.
"All Floridians on the East Coast should have 7 days of supplies, prepare their homes & follow the track closely," governor Ron DeSantis said in a tweet. Later Wednesday, he declared a state of emergency for the counties that could be in the storm's path.
Puerto Rico seemed to be spared any heavy wind and rain, a huge relief on an island where blue tarps still cover some 30,000 homes nearly two years after Hurricane Maria. The island's 3.2m inhabitants also depend on an unstable power grid that remains prone to outages since it was destroyed by Maria, a Category 4 storm.
Ramonita Torres, a thin, stooped, 74-year-old who lives by herself in the impoverished, flood-prone neighborhood of Las Monjas in the capital of San Juan, was still trying to rebuild the home she nearly lost after Maria but was not able to secure the pieces of zinc that now serve as her roof.
"There's no money for that," she said, shaking her head.
Several hundred customers were without power across Puerto Rico, said Angel Figueroa, president of a union that represents power workers.
Police said an 80-year-old man in the northern town of Bayamon died on Wednesday after he fell trying to climb up to his roof to clear it of debris ahead of the storm.
Good morning from the eastern coast of the United States. We'll be bringing you live updates while tracking Hurricane Dorian throughout the day, with posts on the latest paths the storm is taking and what emergency crews are doing on the ground to prepare for the storm.
Hurricane Dorian is gaining strength at it approaches Florida, with forecasters warning it could grow into a dangerous storm before it hits the east coast state.
The hurricane has moved out into open waters after hitting Puerto Ricoand the US Virgin Islands, where it caused power cuts and flooding in places.
The US National Hurricane Centre said Dorian would probably strengthen into a dangerous Category 3 hurricane as it passes near or over the northern Bahamas on Saturday, before hitting Florida on Sunday.
The storm was a Category 1 hurricane when it swirled through the islands of the northeastern Caribbean on Wednesday.
Hurricane Dorian's path took a turn after officials initially expected the storm to hit Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Here's where things stand as of Thursday morning:
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