Stay on guard, governor warns
The big slosh has begun, and the consequences could be disastrous.
Hurricane Florence’s leading edge battered the Carolina coast yesterday, bending trees and shooting frothy sea water over streets on the Outer Banks, as the hulking storm closed in with 155kmh winds for a drenching siege that could last all weekend. Tens of thousands were without power.
Winds and rain were arriving later in South Carolina, and a few people were still walking on the sand at Myrtle Beach while North Carolina was getting pounded. Heavy rainfall began after dark.
Forecasters said conditions will only get more lethal as the storm smashes ashore early today near the North Carolina-South Carolina line and crawls slowly inland. Its surge could cover all but a sliver of the Carolina coast under as much as 3.4m of sea water, and days of downpours could unload more than 0.9m of rain, touching off severe flooding.
Florence’s winds weakened as it drew closer to land, dropping from a peak of 225kmh earlier in the week, and the hurricane was downgraded from a terrifying Category 4 to a 2.
But North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned: ‘‘Don’t relax, don’t get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality.’’
More than 80,000 people were already without power as the storm approached, and more than 12,000 were in shelters. Another 400 people were in shelters in Virginia, where forecasts were less dire.
Forecasters said that given the storm’s size and sluggish track, it could cause epic damage akin to what the Houston area saw during Hurricane Harvey just over a year ago, with floodwaters swamping homes and businesses and washing over industrial waste sites.
‘‘It truly is really about the whole size of this storm,’’ National Hurricane Centre Director Ken Graham said.
‘‘The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact – and we have that.’’
The hurricane was seen as a major test for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was heavily criticised as sluggish and unprepared for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year.
As Florence drew near, President Donald Trump tweeted that FEMA and first responders are ‘‘supplied and ready,’’ and he disputed the official conclusion that nearly 3000 people died in Puerto Rico, claiming the figure was a Democratic plot to make him look bad.
Schools and businesses closed as far south as Georgia, airlines cancelled more than 1500 flights, and coastal towns in the Carolinas were largely emptied out. Around noon, Spanish moss blew sideways in the trees as the winds increased in Wilmington, and floating docks bounced atop swells at Morehead City.
Wilmington resident Julie Terrell was very concerned after walking to breakfast past a row of shops fortified with boards, sandbags and hurricane shutters. ‘‘On a scale of 1 to 10, I’m probably a 7’’ in terms of worry, she said. ‘‘Because it’s Mother Nature. You can’t predict.’’
Forecasters’ European climate model is predicting 2 trillion to 11 trillion gallons of rain will fall on North Carolina over the next week, according to meteorologist Ryan Maue. That’s enough water to fill the Empire State Building nearly 40,000 times.
More than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to evacuate, and the homes of about 10 million were under watches or warnings for the hurricane or tropical storm conditions.
Homeless after losing her job at Walmart three months ago, 25-yearold Brittany Jones went to a storm shelter at a high school near Raleigh.
She said a hurricane has a way of bringing everyone to the same level. ‘‘Whether you have a house or not, when the storm comes it will bring everyone together.’’ –AP