Wind, rain lash Carolinas
The big slosh has begun, and the consequences could be disastrous.
Hurricane Florence’s leading edge battered the Carolina coast Thursday, bending trees and shooting frothy sea water over streets on the Outer Banks, as the hulking storm closed in with 105 mph (165 kph) winds for a drenching siege that could last all weekend.
Forecasters said conditions will only get more lethal as the storm pushes ashore early today near the North Carolina-South Carolina line and makes its way slowly inland. Its surge of ocean water could cover all but a sliver of the Carolina coast under as much as 13 feet, and days of downpours could dump more than 3 feet of rain, touching off severe flooding.
Florence’s winds weakened as it drew closer to land, dropping from a peak of 140 mph (225 kph) earlier in the week, and the hurricane was downgraded from a terrifying Category 4 to a 2.
But North Carolina Gov. 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.”
Forecasters said that given the storm’s size and sluggish track, it could cause epic damage akin to what the Houston area saw Heavy surf crashes the dunes at high tide in Nags Head, N.C., Thursday, as Hurricane Florence approaches the east coast. In this photo provided by NASA, Atlantic Ocean heading for the International Space Station.
during Hurricane Harvey just over a year ago, with floodwaters swamping homes and businesses and washing over industrial and farm waste sites.
“It truly is really about the whole size of this storm,” National Hurricane Center Hurricane U.S. east Florence churns over coast, as seen from the the
Director Ken Graham said. “The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact — and we have that.”
Schools and businesses closed as far south as Georgia, airlines cancelled about 1,200 flights and counting, and coastal towns in
the Carolinas were largely emptied out.
Around midday, Spanish moss blew sideways in the trees as the winds increased in Wilmington. Some of the few people still left in Nags Head on the Outer Banks took photos of angry waves topped with white froth.
By early afternoon, utilities reported about 12,000 homes and businesses were already in the dark.
Wilmington resident Julie Terrell was plenty 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.”
More than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to evacuate over the past few days, and the homes of about 10 million were under watches or warnings for the hurricane or tropical storm conditions.