HURRICANE FLORENCE HEADS TO U. S. EAST COAST
THE SOUTHERN EAST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES IS BRACING FOR THE ARRIVAL OF HURRICANE FLORENCE.
Over 1 million people face evacuation orders in Virginia, North Carolina and S. Carolina.
The center of the hurricane was forecast to move between Bermuda and the Bahamas through Wednesday, and reach coast of North Carolina or South Carolina on Thursday.
A life- threatening storm surge is expected with landfall.
A Category 4 hurricane is expected to approach the most-damaging Category 5 status as it slows strengthens over very warm ocean water off the coast of North and South Carolina.
By 5 a. m. Tuesday, Florence was centered about 975 miles ( 1,570 kilometers) east- southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, and moving west- northwest at 15 mph ( 24 kmph).
The storm’s potential path also includes half a dozen nuclear power plants, pits holding coal- ash and other industrial waste, and numerous hog farms.
LOOMING DISASTER
Hurricane Florence could inflict the hardest hurricane punch the Carolinas have seen in more than 60 years.
North Carolina has been hit by only one other Category 4 storm. That was Hurrican e Hazel in 1954.
Few people have experienced the ferocity of a storm like Hazel, which also was blamed for at least 60 deaths in Virginia, Pennsylvania and New York state.