Residents told to ‘ get out now’
> Hurricane Florence rumbles towards eastern US
WASHINGTON: Highways clogged with people fleeing North and South Carolina early yesterday as monstrous Hurricane Florence rumbled towards the eastern US as the biggest storm there in decades.
While many coastal residents heeded mandatory evacuation orders, others boarded up homes and businesses and chose to brave the storm, which is forecast to trigger severe flash flooding as it dumps as many as a metre of rain in some areas.
Life-threatening storm surges of up to a staggering 4m in some places were also forecast.
North Carolina governor Roy Cooper warned that staying put would be a grave mistake and said people in evacuation zones “need to get out now”.
“This is not a storm that people need to ride out,” Cooper said.
“This is a storm that is historic, maybe once in a lifetime.”
Up to 1.7 million people in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia have been given voluntary or mandatory evacuation orders, according to emergency management officials, as the storm churned across the Atlantic Ocean towards the coast.
The eastbound lanes of several major highways have been shut down to allow for a smooth flow of traffic inland.
“We are already experiencing heavily impacted traffic on some of the evacuation routes,” said Jeff Byard, the associate administrator for response and recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
Forecasters are predicting that Florence will make landfall in the Carolinas later today as a still powerful Category 3 hurricane.
As of 11pm, Florence is a Category 4 packing sustained winds of 220kph, the National Hurricane Centre said.
It was located 1,075km east-southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, and moving at 28kph in a west-northwest direction.
From the Oval Office, President Donald Trump urged people to evacuate, saying “if you are asked to leave, get out”.
“This will be a storm that’s going to be far larger than we have seen in perhaps decades.”
Speaking alongside Trump, Fema administrator Brock Long said Florence may be a “very devastating storm”. – AFP