Hurricane Florence threatens Carolinas; 1M told to evacuate
ATLANTA — As Hurricane Florence gained muscle over the Atlantic Ocean on Monday and sped toward the shores of North and South Carolina, government officials in both states were taking few chances, exhorting more than a million residents and tourists in coastal areas to grab their essentials, jump into their cars and head inland as part of a great coastal emptying.
The National Hurricane Center warned that the storm, which jumped to Category 4 strength on Monday with 140 mph winds, could pummel the shore with life-threatening storm surges and soak a wide area with rains so heavy that freshwater flooding would become a major threat. It is expected to make landfall Thursday night near the North Carolina-South Carolina border.
In Myrtle Beach, S.C., Tneah Brown was listening to the warnings. At work on Monday afternoon, she weighed the complications that would soon flow from the order issued by Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, calling on people in eight counties nearest the shore to get out.
Ms. Brown knew that evacuation was necessary. She also knew it would not be easy. There was her pit bull puppy, Kaya, to think of. And her little sister. And her sister’s 3-week-old baby. And the question of whether her mother would join them as they rushed out of town by noon Tuesday, when the governor’s order takes effect.
“I wasn’t nervous,” Ms. Brown said in a phone interview, “until there was a mandatory evacuation.”
Mr. McMaster said at a Monday afternoon news conference that the lanes of two major divided highways — Interstate 26 and U.S. 501 — would be reversed to make them one-way, carrying traffic only away from the coast, and that two other routes might also be reversed if needed. Schools and state offices in the lower half of the state will be closed.
“We know that this evacuation order I’m issuing is going to be inconvenient for some people,” the governor said. “We do not want to risk one South Carolina life in this hurricane.”
In North Carolina, Gov. Roy
Cooper asked President Donald Trump on Monday to declare a federal state of emergency for his state. In coastal Dare County, the local emergency management agency announced a mandatory evacuation for all residents and visitors on Hatteras Island, the long, slender barrier island off the North Carolina coast, with a similar order to go into effect Tuesday for the rest of the county. Schools in 17 counties were expected to be closed on Tuesday.
“The forecast places North Carolina in the bull’s-eye of Hurricane Florence, and the storm is rapidly getting stronger,” Mr. Cooper said. “When weather forecasters tell us ‘life-threatening,’ we know it’s serious. We are bracing for a hard hit.”
In Myrtle Beach, Ms. Brown said she had not yet decided where to flee to. She was thinking about Savannah, Ga., a few hours’ drive down the coast. She did not have a place to stay there, she said, but she was hoping it would be far enough south to be out of harm’s way.
And so it went. Across the coastal South, an order to clear out is an ever-looming and rarely pleasant possibility all through hurricane season, which officially lasts from June 1 through Nov. 30. Evacuation can often mean hours on choked freeways, followed by days idling in a motel, a shelter or on a friend’s sofa.
It has been less than two years since thousands of coastal South Carolinians followed similar warnings to evacuate as Hurricane Matthew approached.
For government officials, issuing an evacuation order means weighing whether to disrupt not only beach vacations but also entire regional economies. The choice is rarely easy. Last year, when Gov. Rick Scott of Florida told people in his state to flee from Hurricane Irma, he drew criticism for being too cautious.
Some experts said that Hurricane Florence’s impact could be particularly ugly. A report by the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University said that on its projected track and intensity, “this will be a worst-case scenario storm,” with record storm surges and interruptions to electric power.
The report suggested that at Sunset Beach, N.C., southwest of Wilmington, the storm surge could exceed 18 feet, the record set during Hurricane Hazel in 1954.