Ship with 33 people missing in hurricane

For more than 36 hours, there's been no word from, and no

sign of, the U.S.-flagged container ship El Faro.

That means no news on what's happened to the 28

Americans and five Poles aboard, faced with the full fury of

Hurricane Joaquin and its up to 150 mph gusts, 30-foot

waves and potentially 25 inches of rain.

The U.S. Coast Guard dispatched a cutter ship, an MH-60

Jayhawk rescue helicopter and a C-130 Hercules airplane on

Friday. But while the C-130 flew as low as 2,000 feet -- far

below the normal 10,000 feet for such a storm -- it was not

able to get close to the last known location off the Bahamas

of El Faro, which means lighthouse in Spanish, much less

spot or communicate with its occupants.

"There's so much wind, thunderstorms and sea spray that it

is difficult to see," Coast Guard Capt. Mark Fedor told CNN's

Eric Burnett. "But our hope is that they are either on the

vessel or on life rafts, and we can identify them."

Fedor said that the search will resume "at first light"

Saturday morning, hoping by then Joaquin will have finally

picked up its pace -- after crawling for most of the past two

days -- and turned away from the Bahamas.

CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray noted that the ship may

have been able to ride out the storm as it passed, or it might

have been dragged northward with it. The problem is that, at

this point, nobody really knows.

"We know they're disabled," Fedor said. "So really, they're

just moving along with the force of the storm."

Ship's last contact was early Thursday

The Bahamas has been hit hard by Joaquin. Up to 3 feet of

standing water was reported in some areas, a product of 12

to 18 inches (and 25 inches in isolated spots) of rain and

storm surges 2 to 4 feet above normal.

The good news was, after moving little the past few days,

Joaquin was churning northeast at 7 mph after finally starting

its much anticipated pivot at about 8 p.m. ET, according to

the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Centered 25 miles north-

northeast of San Salvador in the Bahamas, it then boasted

sustained 125 mph winds -- making it a Category 3 storm,

down a bit from a day earlier.

Forecasters once feared that Joaquin could make a direct hit

on the United States next. That's no longer the case, though

the broader system could still produce heavy and possibly

historic rains from the Southeast to the Mid-Atlantic through

the weekend.

Sometime then, the hope is that El Faro's occupants will

have been found safe. If so, they'll have quite a story to tell.

The cargo ship set off Tuesday from San Juan, Puerto Rico,

from Jacksonville, Florida. When it did, the ship's officers

were monitoring what was then Tropical Storm Joaquin,

according to Tim Nolan, president of TOTE Maritime Puerto

Rico, which owns the vessel.

But all communications was shut off at 7:20 a.m. ET

Thursday.

"There are a number of possible reasons for the loss of

communications among them the increasing severity of

Hurricane Joaquin," Nolan said in a statement.

The Coast Guard received a report Thursday morning that the

ship had lost propulsion and was taking on water, but that

the flooding had been contained.

The ship was reported to be in distress somewhere near

Crooked Island in the Bahamas.

Another rescue mission was successful: On Thursday night,

the Coast Guard helicopter lifted 12 sailors from their sinking

212-foot cargo ship besieged by Joaquin and listing 51 miles

northwest of Haiti, the guard said. The 12 crew members

were in a life raft and belonged to the Bolivian-flagged cargo

ship Minouche.