Hurricane hammers North Carolina coast

Florence’s 100 mph winds knock out power to thousands

Hurricane Florence closed in on North Carolina with 100 mph winds and surging ocean water — perhaps as high as 13 feet.

The eye of the storm is predicted to make landfall early today near the border of the Carolinas.

Florence, putting along at 5 mph, should remain a Category 2 storm until disintegration sets in when it meets land.

“It truly is really about the whole size of this storm,” National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said. “The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact — and we have that.”

Feeder bands, the spiraling lines of thunderstorms which extend outward from a hurricane’s center, have been pushing ashore in North Carolina coast since Thursday afternoon. The rainfall beneath the bands is torrential.

Florence is forecast to dump unimaginable amounts of rain. Forecasters say it will be measured in feet — not inches.

Hurricane-force winds are now constant along coastal North Carolina with gusts as high as 99 mph reported at Fort Macon and another at 97 mph noted at Cape Lookout. The storm’s wind field spans nearly 400 miles across.

The strongest winds are forecast to blow for nearly a day followed by two days of tropical-storm conditions. Remnants of the storm are likely to linger into next week.

The storm is expected to hug the coast for 24 to 36 hours and then move on a slow-motion course across parts of coastal South Carolina through Saturday.

Wicked winds, raging waves, swelling tributaries, catastrophic flooding, beach erosion and mudslides will be a part of the experience.

It is now too dangerous and too late for anyone to evacuate and Myrtle Creek, S.C. is under a dawn to dusk curfew.

About 1.7 million people are under mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders. More than 10 million people live in places currently under storm watches or warnings.

Cape Hatteras, which juts out into the Atlantic and is home to a historic brick lighthouse, has been under assault since Thursday afternoon.

Sea water rushed ashore like a river, breaching 8-foot-tall sand dunes, making the only highway in and out of the Outer Banks impassable.

Approximately 30,000 were already without power by Thursday evening.

Meanwhile, for the first time in a decade, more than four named storms are rearing up at the same time in the Atlantic.

Here are updates on the others:

TRAVIS LONG/AP Waves slam the Oceana Pier & Pier House Restaurant in Atlantic Beach, N.C. on Thursday ahead of Hurricane Florence making landfall. Rain from the slow-moving storm is expected to be measured in feet, not inches.

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES Men pack their belongings after evacuating their house Thursday after the Neuse River went over its banks and flooded their street in New Bern, N.C.

JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES Susan Ianclan, left, and Jesus Ianclan, right, wait in an evacuation shelter at the Conway High School in Conway, S.C. on Thursday.