’CANE LIKE IRON MIKE
Carolina folks warned to flee before ‘monster’ Florence slams & swamps coast
A FEMA official warned Wednesday that Hurricane Florence “is going to be a Mike Tyson punch to the Carolina coast” as evacuations continued in preparation for the historic storm.
Florence is days away from making landfall and slamming the southeastern states with heavy rain, intense winds and power outages. Officials warned that parts of North and South Carolina might have to deal with hurricane-powered winds for up to 24 consecutive hours.
“This will likely be the storm of a lifetime,” the National Weather Service in Wilmington, N.C., said in its forecast.
Florence was centered more than 470 miles east of Myrtle Beach Wednesday with sustained winds of 125 mph.
In a videotaped message from the White House, President Trump said the government is fully prepared for Florence but encouraged people to “get out of its way.”
“Impacts will still be felt far away from the center of the storm, and uncertainty still exists regarding magnitude of impacts in our area,” the weather service said.
More than 1 million people have been ordered to evacuate.
Experts believe the storm – which was downgraded late Wednesday from Category 4 to Category 2, though still considered extremely dangerous – will hover off the southern North Carolina coast from Thursday night until landfall Saturday morning or so, then veer south through South Carolina and Georgia into Monday.
If the projections hold, “it's exceptionally bad news,” says University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy. He adds that “the rainfall has been and continues to be a very substantial threat over the entire area.”
Accuweather chief Joel Myers warned of “extensive damage” that could result in an estimated $30 billion hit from Florence.
The major power supplier for North and South Carolina, Duke Energy, said it may not even be able to fully assess the damage until early next week due to the storm's conditions. Duke's Energy director of Meteorology Nick Keener estimated as many as 1 to 3 million of the company's 4 million Carolina customers may be hit
with outages.
“This storm is ... nothing like you’ve ever seen,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said. “Even if you’ve ridden out storms before, this one is different. Don’t bet your life on riding out a monster.”
Meteorologists warn there could be up to 40 inches of rain in some areas.
“Today’s the day,” Jeff Byard of FEMA said during a press conference early Wednesday. “It’s time for our citizens to be a part of the team. Heed those warnings and evacuate if you’re in one of the zones.”
Byard added that this “is not going to be a glancing blow. This is going to be a Mike Tyson punch to the Carolina coast.”
Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg told CNN that the nearly 135,000 residents of his historic coastal city should leave now.