Record busting Cat 5 Hurricane Dorian is confirmed the second-strongest Atlantic storm on record: Top sustained winds of 185 mph with gusts topping 220 mph (350 KMH)

NASA: Hurricane Dorian the second-strongest Atlantic storm on record

• Hurricane Dorian the second-strongest Atlantic storm on record 
• Dorian has sustained winds of 185 mph with gusts topping 220 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
• Miami warned of a possible storm surge that could push destructive waves higher than many roofs in the islands
• Dorian was upgraded to Category 5 status Sunday morning
• NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTRE WARNING!

Authorities in the Bahamas are saying they are receiving preliminary reports of heavy damages in areas being pounded by Hurricane Dorian. Joy Jibrilu, director-general of the Bahamas' Ministry of Tourism and Aviation, has told reporters there is a huge amount of damage to property and infrastructure from the hurricane crossing the northwest part of the island archipelago. She adds "It's devastating" but cautions that so far there is "luckily no loss of life reported. At 3 p.m. EDT Sunday, Dorian had top sustained winds of 185 mph with gusts topping 220 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

According to Reuters, the second-strongest Atlantic storm on record was forecast to pound the archipelago through the day, then move slowly toward the eastern U.S. coast, where authorities ordered more than a million people evacuated in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia. There were no immediate estimates of casualties as the category five storm covered the northwestern islands of Great Abaco and Grand Bahama with twisted metal and splintered wood. Winds gusting up to 200 mph (320 kph) destroyed or damaged more than 13,000 homes, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said. Residents posted images online of water rising up the side of their houses. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami warned of a possible storm surge that could push destructive waves higher than many roofs in the islands.

The Weather Channel reported earlier that, maximum sustained winds topped out at 185 mph on Sunday, putting Dorian in a tie for the second-highest sustained wind speed among all Atlantic hurricanes. It also tied the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane in the Florida Keys as the strongest landfalling hurricane in the Atlantic Basin. Dorian was upgraded to Category 5 status Sunday morning. Dorian's intensity has backed off ever so slightly, as it has finally undergone an eyewall replacement, common to all intense tropical cyclones during which its intensity diminishes as a new outer eyewall forms, chokes off its former inner eyewall and contracts inward. Despite that, it is still a formidable hurricane and will remain so over the next several days.

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