Florence set to cause havoc to 3 US states
MOTORISTS streamed inland on highways converted to one-way evacuation routes on Tuesday as about 1.7 million people in three states were warned to get out of the way of Hurricane Florence, a hair-raising storm taking dead aim at the Carolinas with 225 kilometers per hour winds and potentially ruinous rains.
Florence was expected to blow ashore late today or early tomorrow, then slow down and wring itself out for days, unloading 0.3 to 0.6 meters of rain that could cause flooding well inland and wreak environmental havoc by washing over industrial waste sites and hog farms.
Forecasters and politicians pleaded with the public to take the warnings seriously and minced no words in describing the threat.
“This storm is a monster. It’s big and it’s vicious. It is an extremely dangerous, lifethreatening, historic hurricane,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said.
“The waves and the wind this storm may bring is nothing like you’ve ever seen. Even if you’ve ridden out storms before, this one is different. Don’t bet your life on riding out a monster,” he said.
Some hoped intervention.
“I’m prayed up and as ready as I can get,” Steven Hendrick said as he filled up gasoline cans near Conway, South Carolina.
More than 5.4 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches on the US East Coast, according to the National Weather Service, and
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divine another 4 million people were under a tropical storm watch.
President Donald Trump declared states of emergency for North and South Carolina and Virginia, opening the way for federal aid. He said the federal government is “absolutely, totally prepared” for Florence.
All three states ordered mass evacuations along the coast. But getting out of harm’s way could prove difficult.
Florence is so wide that a lifethreatening storm surge was being pushed 485 kilometers ahead of its eye, and so wet that a swath from South Carolina to Ohio and Pennsylvania could get deluged.
People across the region rushed to buy bottled water and other supplies, board up their homes, pull their boats out of the water and get out of town.
A line of heavy traffic moved away from the coast on Interstate 40, the main route between the port city of Wilmington and inland Raleigh. Between the two cities, about two hours apart, the traffic flowed smoothly in places and became gridlocked in others because of fenderbenders.
Only a trickle of vehicles was going in the opposite direction, including pickup trucks carrying plywood and other building materials.
Long lines formed at service stations, and some started running out of gas as far west as Raleigh, with bright yellow bags, signs or rags placed over the pumps to show they were out of order. Some store shelves were picked clean.
“There’s no water. There’s no juices. There’s no canned goods,” Kristin Harrington said as she shopped at a Walmart in Wilmington.
At 11pm, the storm was centered 1,075 kilometers southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, moving at 128 kph. It was a potentially catastrophic Category 4 storm but was expected to keep drawing energy from the warm water and intensify to near Category 5, which means winds of 253 kph or higher.
Florence is the most dangerous of three tropical systems in the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Isaac was east of the Lesser Antilles and expected to pass south of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, while Hurricane Helene was moving northward away from land. Forecasters also were tracking two other disturbances.