By Frances Robles, Daniel Chang and Curtis Morgan
McClatchy Newspapers
NASSAU, Bahamas – On Cat Island, where a 140-mph gust was recorded, police cars were awash in 4 feet of sea water and every power line was down. In the Exumas, Sandals Resort announced it would refuse new guests until battered rooms and docks can be fixed. On Acklins Island, the Lovely Bay settlement no longer fit its name, an estimated 90 percent of homes simply “gone.”
Hurricane Irene, finally pulling away from the Bahamas late Thursday, gave the archipelago a top-to-bottom beating. Just how bad it was may take days to assess as authorities in the relatively unscathed capital city struggled to gather reports from out islands silenced by Irene’s fallen telephone poles and a blanket of satellite-blocking clouds and storms.
Damage in the sparsely populated islands may pale in comparison to the potentially catastrophic impacts Category 3 Irene could have over the next few days. Much of the East Coast, and tens of millions of people, were officially in the danger zone for a massive, menacing tropical cyclone.