Over 1.5 million evacuated as Hurricane Florence takes aim at Carolinas
RALEIGH, N.C. — State and local officials in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia have ordered about 1.5 million people to evacuate a lengthy stretch of coastline ahead of Hurricane Florence’s potentially catastrophic landfall, which is expected Thursday.
Florence is an extremely powerful storm that has been rapidly intensifying during its journey across the Atlantic, becoming a Category 4 hurricane and doubling the size of its hurricaneforce wind zone Monday.
The unusually warm water that awaits Florence as it nears the U.S. coast could accelerate the storm’s winds to 155 miles per hour — nearly Category 5 intensity — before it strikes land, probably near the North Carolinasouth Carolina border.
Forecasts late Monday predicted that Florence’s path would head toward North Carolina, but it could still veer north or south and is likely to affect a large part of the region with pounding rains, perhaps for days.
[‘Extremely dangerous’ Hurricane Florence may approach Category 5 as it churns toward the Carolinas]
States and counties along the Eastern Seaboard from Maryland to Georgia are bracing for the impact of what the National Hurricane Center warned could be a “life-threatening storm surge” along the coast, and “life-threatening freshwater flooding from a prolonged and exceptionally heavy rainfall” from the coast to areas much further inland.
The governors of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina each declared a state of emergency. And the National Park Service said it was preparing for the potential need to deploy a levee through downtown Washington to protect against flooding in a region that already has been saturated by heavy rains in recent weeks.
“We do know we’re in the bull’s eye. We’re using this time to get together all the people we need, the equipment that we need, locating our strategic resources,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said Monday. Local authorities have ordered the evacuation of more than 250,000 residents and tourists from coastal islands and beach towns, where authorities expect a storm surge of at least 10 feet.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) on Monday evening ordered the evacuation of roughly a quarter of a million people from sections of the Eastern Shore, Virginia Beach, Hampton, Norfolk and the Middle Peninsula starting Tuesday morning. Northam also activated the state’s entire National Guard to provide help and requested 21 swift-water rescue teams from other states.
Meteorologists and government officials say the hurricane will bring powerful winds and storm surges to the coast, but the threat doesn’t stop there: Torrential rains across the broader region are likely to bring significant flooding to low-lying areas, including to communities more than 100 miles inland. Any stall as the storm heads northwest could lead to conditions reminiscent of Hurricane Harvey, which flooded Houston with more than four feet of rain in August 2017. In South Carolina, which Gov. Henry Mcmaster (R) said Monday is “liable to have a whole lot of flooding” no matter where the hurricane strikes, more than 1 million people are expected to take to the roadways Tuesday in response to mandatory evacuation orders affecting eight coastal counties.
The state has closed schools and state government offices across 26 counties to accommodate an influx of people in need of shelter, and hundreds of law enforcement officials Tuesday will enforce one-way passage away from the coast along four major highways.
Both North Carolina and South Carolina have asked President Trump to declare a federal emergency for their states as soon as possible, to give them access to federal resources.
The Pentagon began preparing for the hurricane in earnest Monday, ordering nearly 30 ships based in Norfolk out to sea to avoid the storm and sending a small team of Defense Department personnel to a headquarters in Raleigh, N.C. The military could take a beating from the storm with installations up and down the coastline. The Marine Corps’ shoreside Camp Lejeune, near where the storm could make landfall, is home to nearly 170,000 Marines, sailors, civilians and retirees.
Hauslohner and Samenow reported from Washington. Joel Achenbach, Dana Hedgpeth, Dan Lamothe, David Nakamura, Kristine Phillips, Reis Thebault and Katie Zezima in Washington; Laura Vozzella in Richmond; and Brian Mcnoldy in Miami contributed to this report.