Woman shelters 97 dogs in her home as Hurricane Dorian lashes Bahamas

NASSAU, Bahamas — As Hurricane Dorian tears through the Bahamas, one woman is hunkering down with nearly 100 rescue dogs in her home.

In a Facebook post, Chella Phillips said 79 of the 97 dogs in her Nassau home were sheltering inside her master bedroom. She quipped that the dogs are going to the bathroom “nonstop…but at least they are respecting my bed and nobody has dared to jump in.”

“Everyone here gets along and [welcomes] the newcomers with tail wags cause they know they are their brothers and sisters in suffering on the streets,” Phillips wrote.

She continued: “We may not get hit as hard as other islands and the saddest part is that after the hurricane leave the Bahamas, some islands will take a long time to recover…Each island has [an] abundance of homeless dogs, my heart is so broken for the ones without a place to hide.”

Phillips told ABC News she has spent 15 years rescuing homeless dogs and finding them homes in the United States. Her story has been widely circulated online, prompting an outpouring of support and financial donations to support her rescue efforts.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Monday that the slow-moving Category 4 storm’s maximum sustained winds fell to 145 mph – down from 155 mph earlier in the day.

Dorian is expected to slowly move northeast, but on Monday afternoon it remained about 25 miles northeast of Freeport, Grand Bahama. It was about 105 miles east of West Palm Beach, Florida.

The center said Dorian is expected to move “dangerously close” to the Florida east coast late Monday through Wednesday evening and then move north to coastal Georgia and South Carolina on Wednesday night and Thursday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.