The U.S. Coast Guard continued rescue operations in the Bahamas Thursday as residents who survived Hurricane Dorian found themselves in need of food, water and medical help.
Search teams started making their way to the areas hardest hit by Dorian, which made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane and pounded the Bahamas for days.
As of Thursday morning, the Coast Guard had rescued 135 people and six pets in the Bahamas since Dorian began. The Coast Guard has been conducting air operations out of Andros Island.
NBC 6 was on a Coast Guard aircraft with multiple families who were rescued early Thursday. The aircraft had been on a mission checking out damage to airports, infrastructure and homes on Abaco Island and had no plans to land until the crew spotted a group of people who needed to be rescued.
Among the group rescued was Gary Lewis, his wife, and his one-month-old daughter, Atarah. They were brought to the safety of the airport at Marsh Harbour.
"We started to pray and our prayers were answered," Lewis said. "The wind and the water started coming, the water going in all the other houses and the concrete we were on, that was the only thing we were kind of protected in. I had to hold my baby up like for an hour or two just to keep her from drowning, the wind blew off the roof, everything just collapsed."
The death toll on the Bahamas has climbed to 20, with officials expecting more.
"We lost good friends, we lost one of our fellow teachers, I lost one of my good friends," Lewis said.
