Officials slam 'social media idiots' riding into Hurricane Dorian on boats to post pictures
State officials are blasting some residents for leaving the safety of their homes and secure places and venturing outside during the 185 mph winds of Hurricane Dorian to film themselves and later post it on social media.
Hurricane Dorian is expected to hit the United States on September 2 as hundreds of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
In the past few hours, multiple videos have emerged on social media, showing how people in the Bahamas are steeping out braving dangerous conditions during the Category 5 hurricane. In one of them, a man shared a clip of himself battling strong winds in the lashing rain, saying he was at least 80 miles away from the eye of the storm but was still dealing with dreadful weather conditions. In another footage, a man is shown trying to navigate a small boat in the choppy waters.
Shortly after the videos began showing up on multiple social media platforms, the National Hurricane Center (NHC), on Twitter, issued a stern warning about the dangers of one of the strongest Atlantic storms ever recorded.
"IMPORTANT: We have seen videos in the Abacos of people venturing out in the eye of #Dorian. Everyone should take shelter immediately as winds will increase rapidly and unpredictably after the eye passes," the NHC tweeted.
The video of a man steering a boat in the waters was reportedly taken by some people who were also on a boat. In the clip, they can be heard calling the man on a flimsy boat an "idiot" as they laugh and debate whether they should call him inside.
"Man are you a f*****g idiot, he isn't going to make it. His motor keeps dying on him," someone in the clip can be heard saying.
World Central Kitchen's Jose Andres was among the social media users to venture out in the storm as he posted a selfie video on Twitter in an attempt to raise awareness about how powerful the hurricane is going to be when it actually hits. Andres said: "I want everybody to understand we are not in the Abacos we're like 90 miles away... this is gonna be one of the biggest storms ever. It's going to be really really gonna be huge... so lets' pray for everybody."
Minutes after he posted the video, many users quickly responded by asking him to "get back inside" and "stay safe." One Twitter user wrote: "Please be careful. We have to hold on to all the good people that we can."
In another such video, a man can be seen driving through the flooded streets of Nassau, Bahamas as he says: "Why am I driving in this god damn storm like an idiot, I'm disrespecting mother nature... wow, wow. This is terrible."
The massive storm made its first landfall on the Abaco Islands on Sunday afternoon as "catastrophic conditions" were reported there, with a storm surge of 18-23 feet, and Dorian was expected to cross Grand Bahama "with all its fury." Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said that in some places in the islands "you cannot tell the difference as to the beginning of the street versus where the ocean begins."