Hallandale Beach – Hurricane Dorian has already spread huge destruction and mayhem in the Bahamas over the weekend, battering the islands with winds that reached 185 mph and gusts up to 220 mph, tying the record for the most powerful Atlantic hurricane to ever make landfall.
Dorian first came ashore Sunday at Elbow Cay in Abaco island, Bahamas at 12:40 p.m. and then made a second landfall near Marsh Harbour at 2 p.m. “Catastrophic conditions” were reported in Abaco, with a storm surge of 18 to 23 feet.
“It’s devastating,” Joy Jibrilu, director general of the Bahamas’ Ministry of Tourism and Aviation, said Sunday afternoon. “There has been huge damage to property and infrastructure.”
A video that Jibrilu and government spokesman Kevin Harris said was sent by Abaco residents showed homes missing parts of roofs, electric lines on the ground and smashed and overturned cars. One showed floodwaters rushing through the streets of an unidentified town at nearly the height of a car roof.
At present the storm — which weakened slightly to a Category 4 status late Monday morning — is currently about 100 miles east of West Palm Beach and is moving west at 1 mph. Millions of residents on the East Coast are watching to see if Dorian will turn north in the next two days and spare them from a direct hit or if it will continue its westward path towards Florida.
Vosizneias asked Rabbi Yossi Lebovics, the principal of the Chaya Aydel Seminary in Hallandale Beach, FL about preparations for the hurricane and how they have affected the beginning of the school year at the seminary.
Since its inception in 2002 , Chaya Aydel has attracted hundreds of students . After Seminary, many Florida Seminary students go on to prestigious colleges and universities. Graduates of Chaya Aydel pursue careers in Jewish education as well as in medicine, law, engineering, and business.
Rabbi Lebovics, are you planning to evacuate your students to a safer region?
That’s a complex question as we have girls coming from all around the world. The school year was supposed to begin Tuesday and by Tuesday we should know whether the hurricane will be hitting close by or whether it will be moving further north. If internal flights will arrive as scheduled that will be a sign that the storm has moved further away and there is no cause for worry. If the flights are cancelled, the airlines have agreed to let girls fly on a later date at no further charge.
However there is also a girl who arrived from Australia and we couldn’t tell her to cancel her flight, which arrived on Sunday. We have to take responsibility for her and ensure her safety, so at present she is in the dorm and if there is any chance that the hurricane will hit, we will evacuate her and the other girls who have arrived early to a safer place further inland.
Were you ever affected by previous hurricanes and in what ways?
I can’t recall ever being affected by hurricanes in our region. We usually start the year after the Yomim Tovim since there is generally little time beforehand but this year there is nearly a whole month which happens to coincide with the hurricane season. [Editor’s note: In December 2009 flash floods caused significant damage to the Chabad center at Hallandale Beach during a Chanukah party which was also attended by seminary girls. 20 people were trapped in the center and evacuated by members of the Sheriff’s office after walking through thigh-deep flood waters. The Chabad preschool and offices were destroyed by the floodwaters.]
Are you boarding up in preparation for the hurricane?
At present the hurricane is set to hit further north and therefore the main preparations are being made further north but we are watching the weather closely.
As reported by Vos Iz Neias