The US Coast Guard scoured Bahamian waters for a disabled cargo ship with 33 crew, including 28 US citizens, that lost contact during Hurricane Joaquin, which was moving away from the sprawling archipelago yesterday.
The 224m ship the El Faro had taken on water and was listing at 15° near Crooked Island, one of the islands most battered by the hurricane.
The coast guard said it had not been able to re-establish communication with the vessel, which was traveling from Jacksonville, Florida, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, when it ran into the storm and became disabled near Joaquin’s eye.
Officials said the crew — 28 US citizens and five Poles — earlier reported they had been able to contain the flooding.
“We’re going to go and try and save lives. We’re going to push it to the operational limits as far as we can,” US Coast Guard Captain Mark Fedor said of rescue efforts.
Fedor said there were waves up to 9m high in the area and that heavy winds could have destroyed the ship’s communications equipment. The ship went missing when Joaquin was a category 4 storm. The hurricane has since lost strength and become a category 3 storm.
Late on Friday, the coast guard said the planes and helicopters involved in the search had returned to base and would resume the search for the ship at first light.
The ship’s owner, Florida-based TOTE Services said in a brief statement that it was working with the coast guard and trying to establish communication with the ship.
Meanwhile, Joaquin was moving away from the Bahamas yesterday. Its threat to the US east coast was fading as new forecasts showed it likely to curve out into the Atlantic while moving north and weakening in coming days.
Authorities in the Bahamas were expected to need days to assess damage on the hundreds of islands and cays that form the archipelago.
On Friday, it destroyed houses, uprooted trees and unleashed heavy flooding as it hurled torrents of rain across the Bahamas.
There had been no reports of fatalities or injuries so far, Bahamas National Emergency Management Agency director Captain Stephen Russell said.
Officials were investigating reports of shelters being damaged and flooded, as well as two boats with a total of five people that remained missing.
About 85 percent of homes in one settlement of a couple dozen houses on Crooked Island were destroyed, Acklins Island representative Marvin Hanna said, adding that he has had no communication with Acklins since late on Thursday morning.
“At that time, vehicles were floating around and the water level was up to the windows of some homes,” he said.
Residents reached by relatives said they were “trapped in their homes, and reported feeling as if their structures were caving in,” Russell said. “It’s too dangerous to go outside because the flood waters are so high, so we ask that persons stay inside and try to go into the most secure place of their home.”
Power also was knocked out to several islands, Bahamas Electricity Corp executive chairman Leslie Miller said, adding that the company “is in no position to do much” to restore electricity.
“All the airports are flooded,”he said.
Schools, businesses and government offices were closed as the slow-moving storm roared through the island chain.
Joaquin had maximum sustained winds of 205kph, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
By late on Friday night, the storm was centered about 95km north-northeast of San Salvador in the Bahamas and was moving northeast at about 17kph.
National Hurricane Center director Rick Knabb said Joaquin is expected to pass well offshore of the US east coast.
“We no longer have any models forecasting the hurricane to come into the east coast,” he said. “But we are still going to have some bad weather.”
In addition, the entire east coast would experience dangerous surf and rip currents through the weekend, he said.
“Joaquin is going to generate a lot of wave energy,” Knabb said, adding that Bermuda might issue a tropical storm or hurricane watch, depending on Joaquin’s path.
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