Hurricane Dorian became the strongest storm in modern records to hit the northwestern Bahamas and is expected to pound the islands with up to two days of torrential rain, high waves and damaging winds as parts of Florida evacuated before it took aim at the U.S. mainland. The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Dorian was over Abaco as a Category 5 storm on Sunday with maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour (285 km per hour) and gusts of more than 200 mph (322 kph). Millions of people from Florida to North Carolina were bracing to see whether Dorian avoids a U.S. landfall and, as predicted, veers north into the Atlantic Ocean after hitting the Bahamas.
