Over the Bahamas, shocking scenes of devastation left by Hurricane Dorian

On Great Abaco, high winds remained but the rain had subsided as residents emerged to gasp at the incredible devastation. Huge piles of rubble were what remained of businesses and homes wrecked by the strongest storm to hit the islands, new aerial video shows.

It’s difficult to tell whether one scene shows a neighborhood or an industrial center. The ruin was immense; the area had been turned into what looked from above like a floating landfill. Shipping containers were tossed among the rubble.

Brandon Clement, who was in a helicopter over the area, told CNN that even new homes constructed under more stringent building codes were destroyed by the storm.

The storm’s death toll, which officials fear will rise sharply, stood at five people, according to authorities.

Neighbors rescuing neighbors

On Grand Bahama Island, residents of Freeport were fervently working Tuesday to rescue people in communities where the havoc wreaked by Dorian was much worse than expected.

With streets almost impassible due to high water and stranded vehicles and with pounding rain still falling and tropical storm force winds blowing, residents put together an ad hoc rescue group with boats and personal watercraft.

The rescue efforts are dangerous and harrowing, according to a CNN crew that watched rescued Bahamians brought to a bridge half-covered by water that was being used as a staging point.

The CNN crew tried to drive around Grand Bahama Island, but many streets are either flooded or are blocked by submerged cars.

Dozens of people were going back and forth to help with the rescue. Some of the people rescued were utterly exhausted after spending all night clinging to their roofs or being stuck in their attics.

One rescued man told CNN his wife drowned in front of him. Another man said he found his brother clinging to a tree and the brother’s wife was last seen grasping a piece of cardboard.

Storm slowly moving out

Dorian inched away from the northern Bahamas after lingering over the islands for days, leaving catastrophic damage and people stranded in flooded buildings.

Since it smashed into the Abaco Islands as a Category 5 storm on Sunday, it has knocked homes to the ground and flooded streets in the northern Bahamas.

“Right now, (we’re) taking a beating,” Bahamian lawmaker Iram Lewis told CNN from Freeport late Tuesday morning. “We need wheelchairs, hospital beds, we need walkers.”

“Whatever you can send, we’ll take it, because we are in trouble,” he said.

Freeport resident Harold Williams said his son went out on a Jet Ski and heard people calling out. “Help! Help me, get out!” one said.

Williams said they went to get stranded relatives who had to wade out to the watercraft in chest-deep water.

“I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this in our lifetime. Total destruction,” Williams said.

Dorian — the strongest hurricane ever to make landfall in the Bahamas — moved only 30 miles in 30 hours from Monday into Tuesday, mercilessly raking the same areas with destructive storm surge and winds.

At 7 p.m. ET Tuesday, Dorian was heading slowly to the northwest at 6 mph. By the time the storm moves away, parts of the Bahamas will have received more than 30 inches of rain, forecasters said.

It could make a US landfall on Thursday or Friday in North or South Carolina, CNN meteorologist Judson Jones said.

People are trapped on their roofs, lawmaker says

Lewis, the Bahamian lawmaker, told CNN that when he toured parts of Freeport on Tuesday morning, he saw a couple houses that had lost their roofs.

“People standing outside, just stunned,” he said. “But we have more water damage than wind damage right now. And even persons on high ground that need to be rescued, they’re trapped on their roofs, in the attic space, and we cannot get to them.”

Rescuers have sometimes had to postpone their missions because fallen trees and other debris block their way, Bahamian Sen. Kwasi Thompson told ZNS, a national broadcaster.

On Monday, Lewis captured video showing Freeport’s main airport mostly underwater — a virtual lake lapping up against the windows of the building Lewis was standing in.

A family takes shelter in what’s left of a church

On Man-O-War Cay, Gina Albury and 11 other people — including her husband and four children — were sheltered in what’s left of a church, with no electricity. The top floor was destroyed — as were Albury’s home and many other buildings on the island, said Albury’s sister, Kate Racer-Russell.

“All the boats in the harbor in Man-O-War Cay (sank), including all the ferry boats,” said Racer-Russell, who lives in Florida and was relaying Albury’s account to CNN. “Only two people have a (satellite) phone on that cay, and that’s the only reason why I know my sister and her family are alive and well.”

The family intended to leave before the storm, but their boat engine failed. Racer-Russell said she’s heard that helicopter crews intend to deliver supplies to the cay Thursday or Friday.

“I hope they can hold out,” Racer-Russell said.

Racer-Russell has other relatives taking shelter in Marsh Harbour, a badly flooded city on Great Abaco. Her husband’s brothers were staying in an attic, because the ground floor was inundated, she said Tuesday.

One of her brothers-in-law, Bryce Russell, sent a photo showing his truck nearly submerged, with only the top showing.

One resident from Marsh Harbour told CNN he saw people walking in waist-deep waters and saw a house that had flipped over.

Dorian kills at least 5 in the Abaco Islands

Dorian killed at least five people in the Bahamas’ Abaco Islands, officials said Monday.

The toll includes an 8-year-old boy, believed to have drowned in rising waters, his grandmother Ingrid McIntosh told local news outlets.

McIntosh’s 31-year-old daughter found the boy’s body, she told the Bahamas’ Eyewitness News. She says her granddaughter is also missing.

Bahamian officials said Monday it was still difficult to assess the number of casualties amid the dire conditions.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported Dorian’s maximum sustained wind speed at 11 a.m. ET Tuesday. It was 110 mph.