Bonnie Builds; Charley Soaks Texas Seashore

Wind and rain from the fringes of Hurricane Bonnie hit the Bahamas on Saturday, as the storm’s top winds neared 95 mph and it took aim at possible U.S. landfall within days.

Bonnie passed hurricane strength of 74 mph early Saturday, and its eye stayed offshore as it skirted the Bahamas. It stalled briefly during the day, allowing it to build power over the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean before resuming its march west-northwest.

While Bonnie was strengthening, Tropical Storm Charley pounded the Texas coast with as much as 9 inches of rain before being downgraded to a tropical depression as it moved over land.

The Bahamas government warned residents to quickly finish preparations for the hurricane. Some residents boarded up homes and businesses in the capital, Nassau, and the tiny islands to the south in the archipelago of about 700 islands stretching southeast from the coast of Florida.

“It’s very windy and it’s raining,” said Marta Moss, a telephone operator in Mayaguana, a southern Bahamian island close to the storm. “People are staying in. Some are worried.”

Although it was too early to say with certainty, forecasters said Bonnie was expected to become a major hurricane, with winds of 111 mph to 130 mph, within two days, and its most likely course would take it to landfall along the U.S. coast from Georgia to North Carolina.

“It’s growing. We definitely need to keep an eye on it,” National Hurricane Center Director Jerry Jarrell said.

At 8 p.m. PDT Saturday, Bonnie’s center was about 195 miles east of San Salvador in the Bahamas.

The storm was moving to the west-northwest at about 9 mph. Its forward speed had slowed, which could give it a better chance to gain power.

It was expected take a slow turn to the northwest, skirting the Florida coast. But computer models showed a small possibility it could continue on a west-northwest track toward the heavily populated coast of Miami and southeast Florida.

“We think at this point that the turn to the northwest will occur,” hurricane center meteorologist Jeremy Pennington said. “But there is always a chance it will continue to the west-northwest, in which case interests down to South Florida would have to keep a close watch.”

Charley crossed land about 30 miles north of Corpus Christi, Texas. Nine inches of rain fell during the night at the Texas coastal town of Matagorda, which also had wind gusts hitting 70 mph, and surfers took advantage of the waves at Port Aransas. Farther north, Houston got only about an inch of rain.

With Bonnie’s path uncertain, the Boeing Co. delayed Monday’s maiden flight of its Delta 3 rocket, which will carry a communications satellite. The launch, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., was pushed back at least a day.