Satellites capture stark imagery of receding flood waters from devastating storm surge in Bahamas
FREEPORT, Bahamas - A satellite image from Finnish company ICEYE taken over Grand Bahama Island Monday showed the incredible extent of flooding which occurred as a result of Hurricane Dorian battering the island, and now a new satellite image from ICEYE shows the flood waters finally receding to close to normal levels.
The new image was captured by ICEYE’s X2 satellite on Wednesday at 3:55 p.m. local time, just a little over two days after the first image was captured.
The original image, taken at 11:44 a.m. local time Monday, showed vast stretches of the island completely inundated by water, so much so that much of the northern coastline was effectively erased.
In the image captured on Wednesday afternoon, much of the island’s land mass and coastline is visible again. Lower elevations on the eastern side of the island still remain partially flooded.
ICEYE’s satellites also captured stark imagery of the receding flooding on Great Abaco Island between Monday and Tuesday.
Using combined analysis from Copernicus Sentinel-1 (a European Space Agency satellite) and road imagery from OpenStreetMaps, ICEYE created a short video animation of the floodwater movement on Great Abaco Island, which you can watch below.
Hurricane Dorian is the most powerful storm to have hit the Bahamas in recorded history, and after the flood water began receding, the residents of the islands found themselves dealing with “apocalyptic” damage.
RELATED: ‘Apocalyptic': Photos show Hurricane Dorian's devastating aftermath in the Bahamas
"It's total devastation. It's decimated. Apocalyptic," said Lia Head-Rigby, who helps run a local hurricane relief group and flew over the Bahamas' hard-hit Abaco Islands. "It's not rebuilding something that was there; we have to start again.“
This story was reported from Los Angeles. The Associated Press contributed to this report.