Former Winnipegger in Florida on edge after watching and waiting for Hurricane Dorian

A former Winnipegger living in Florida says uncertainty is still in the air as a catastrophic Category 4 storm, Hurricane Dorian, rages through the Bahamas and edges closer to the U.S. seaboard.

Nikki Cameron spoke to CBC News as she packed up her home in Rockledge, on the east coast of Florida, on Monday morning to head to safety in St. Petersburg.

"Pretty much every house is boarded up," Cameron said. Her area is one of a handful of coastal communities in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina under mandatory evacuation orders.

"It's a little nerve-racking, just kind of watching and waiting. We've been watching it for nine days now, and it's kind of to the point that we're just ready to know whether it's going to be a direct hit.

"As of right now, it's stressful because nobody really knows where it's going or what it's doing."

Hurricane Dorian struck the northern Bahamas as a Category 5 storm Sunday. Record 295 km/h winds ripped off roofs, overturned cars and tore down power lines, sending hundreds to seek safety in schools, churches and shelters. With gusts up to 354 km/h, the storm tied the record for the most powerful Atlantic hurricane to ever make landfall.

On Monday, the storm was downgraded to still-powerful Category 4, its westward movement slowing and its top sustained winds decreasing to 249 km/h.

In Rockledge, Cameron said many residents — including her parents — were deciding to stay put, despite mandatory evacuation orders.

"A lot of people are still choosing to stay, because they figure that Dorian is going to turn," she said. "But I'm not so confident that it's going to turn. It's really beating up the Bahamas right now, so we've decided that we're going to go."

Uncertainty about timeline

Cameron, who moved to Florida from Winnipeg in 1999, lived in Key West, Fla., when the area was pounded by Hurricane Irma in 2017.

She said she decided Sunday night to leave the area, after days of watching the storm's slow progress.

"I'm playing it safe. We boarded up the house and packed everything up, and [we're] packing up the dogs and making a three-hour drive to St. Petersburg," she said Monday morning.

"It can be really stressful, because you only have so much room in your vehicles, and you have to decide what's really important that you want to take, in case … you come back and it's absolutely flooded."

She said she's lucky to have friends to stay with in St. Petersburg, but it's still not clear when they'll be able to return home. The storm's slow movement makes it hard to predict, she says.

"We just stay in touch with people and try to find out what's going on here by watching the news, and just see when it's safe to come back," she said.

"But like I said, as slow as it's moving, we don't know how long it's going to be before we can come home."