The Category 1 storm may hit Florida’s coast, further testing a state that has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic.
Florida was preparing for wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour and dangerous coastal surf on Saturday as Hurricane Isaias churned toward the state’s coastline.
The storm, a Category 1 hurricane, raked parts of Puerto Rico — killing one woman — and the Dominican Republic, and began battering the Bahamas early Saturday.
Forecasters said on Saturday that Isaias’s projected path had shifted slightly eastward, and could potentially make landfall over Palm Beach, Jacksonville and other coastal cities in the hurricane’s possible path.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency offered federal disaster assistance to the state on Saturday, a move approved by President Trump, the agency announced in a statement.
Miami is no longer in the “cone” that signals the hurricane’s possible paths, but the National Weather Service warned that the region could still see floods from heavy rain and damage from strong winds.
Up the coast, officials in Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina were closely monitoring the storm, which is expected to move north and could scrape the coasts of any of those states.
Like Florida, those three states have seen a dramatic rise in new reported cases of the coronavirus since mid-June, and more recently, health officials have warned that their health-care systems could be strained beyond capacity with the flood of new patients. Emergency management officials have been drawing up new plans to deal with people fleeing amid the virus, including placing people in hotel rooms instead of congregate shelters like basketball gyms.
Even so, Keith Acree, a North Carolina emergency management spokesman, said the state was urging coastal residents to make plans to stay with family or friends further inland. “A shelter this year is not really where you want to be this year during a pandemic,” he said.
As of 2 p.m., the hurricane was about 140 miles southeast of Fort Lauderdale and moving toward the coast at about 12 miles per hour. Its winds were swirling at about 75 m.p.h.
In Florida, a hurricane warning remained in effect from Boca Raton to the northern edge of Volusia County, which includes Daytona Beach. A hurricane watch also remained in effect from southern Broward County to south of Boca Raton. There could be storm surges up to four feet high.
In Puerto Rico, a woman drowned when storms formed by Hurricane Isaias dragged her away in her car in the municipality of Rincón, in the northwest of the island, the Puerto Rico Department of Public Safety announced Saturday in a statement. The woman had gone missing on Thursday, the authorities said.
The storm is expected to weaken be off the coast of Georgia on Monday morning, and off the coast of South Carolina by Monday evening.
Palm Beach County opened four general population centers at one middle school and three high schools Saturday morning as Hurricane Isaias continued to stretch up the Atlantic Coast. The shelters are available only to residents who live in mobile homes or “sub-standard” housing, the county said.
Individuals older than 2 will be required to wear face coverings, and temperature screenings will be conducted for all residents who want to enter the shelters. The county noted that social distancing protocols would be in effect, and families staying at the shelters would be kept further apart from each other.
