A tweet from President Donald Trump Sunday morning warning that Alabama would be impacted from the category 5 hurricane Dorian drew corrections from the state’s most well known weatherman and others.
“In addition to Florida – South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, will most likely be hit (much) harder than anticipated. Looking like one of the largest hurricanes ever. Already category 5. BE CAREFUL! GOD BLESS EVERYONE!” Trump tweeted at 9:51 a.m. Sunday.
Twenty minutes later the National Weather Service in Birmingham’s twitter account wrote that Alabama would not be impacted.
“Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane #Dorian will be felt across Alabama. The system will remain too far east. #alwx” NWS Birmingham tweeted.
Forty minutes after Trump’s tweet Alabama’s own James Spann retweeted Trump’s incorrect assessment with his own comment.
“Alabama will not be impacted by Dorian in any way.” Spann tweeted.
While Alabama would be fine, the category 5 hurricane with peak winds of 185 miles an hour made landfall in the Bahamas at 12:40 p.m. in Elbow Cay, Abacos.
Wind gusts were up to 220 miles an hour and a storm surge was at least 18 to 20 feet above normal tides, according to The Washington Post.
Images coming out of the Abacos islands Sunday afternoon showed homes torn apart, flooding well above streets and cars flipped across yards. It was unclear Sunday afternoon if there was any loss of life in the Bahamas.
Dorian’s peak sustained winds were the strongest so far north in the area east of Florida on record, according to Philip Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University who specializes in Atlantic basin hurricanes.
The National Hurricane Center on Sunday issued a public advisory warning of storm surges along Florida’s eastern coastline around Orlando.
Forecasters predicted Sunday that the storm would slow over the next day or two then head north, skirting the U.S. coast impacting Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.
