Waves churned up by Hurricane Irene slam into a pier August 26, 2011 in Nags Head, North Carolina. Dare County, which includes the vacation towns of Nags Head, Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills, has ordered a mandatory evacuation of tourists and residents as Hurricane Irene strengthens and moves closer to the area. The eye of the hurricane is expected to pass over Dare County tomorrow afternoon.
J.C. Baker (R) and Andy Sullivan help to board up a home along North Carolina's Outer Banks August 25, 2011 in Nags Head, North Carolina. Dare County, which includes Nags Head, has ordered a mandatory evacuation of an estimated 150,000 tourists effective this morning as Hurricane Irene strengthens and moves closer. Residents of the town were given until Friday to evacuate.
Andy Sullivan (L) and J.C. Baker help to board up a home along North Carolina's Outer Banks August 25, 2011 in Nags Head, North Carolina. Dare County, which includes Nags Head, has ordered a mandatory evacuation of an estimated 150,000 tourists effective this morning as Hurricane Irene strengthens and moves closer. Residents of the town were given until Friday to evacuate.
Residents pack their belongings as they prepare to evacuate in front of Hurricane Irene August 25, 2011 in Nags Head, North Carolina. Dare County, which includes Nags Head, has ordered a mandatory evacuation of an estimated 150,000 tourists effective this morning as Hurricane Irene strengthens and moves closer. Residents of the town were given until Friday to evacuate.
Lyn Taylor removes lettering from the sign above The Ship's Wheel restaurant in preparation for Hurricane Irene August 26, 2011 in Nags Head, North Carolina. Dare County, which includes the vacation towns of Nags Head, Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills, has ordered a mandatory evacuation of tourists and residents as Hurricane Irene strengthens and moves closer to the area. The eye of the hurricane is expected to pass over Dare County tomorrow afternoon.
NAGS HEAD , N.C. — The eye wall of Hurricane Irene, now a category one storm, is within a couple of hours of making landfall in eastern North Carolina, the first stop in the mainland United States for a storm that is expected to scrape up the East Coast and bring flooding rains to a dozen states.
Howling winds and sheets of rains accompanied the storm overnight, signaling the approach of its core. A hurricane-force wind gust was reported at Hatteras on the Outer Banks. A predawn update by the National Hurricane Center indicated that the hurricane would make landfall after daybreak Saturday somewhere between Morehead City, to the west, and Cape Hatteras, to the east. In its 5 a.m. update, the hurricane center said the storm was about 35 miles south of Cape Lookout, N.C.
After reaching land, it is expected to force a storm surge into the bays and sounds, inundating low-lying areas.
The storm is then forecast to continue churning north-north-east toward New York, where mandatory evacuations were issued in parts of the city.
On Saturday morning the hurricane center downgraded the storm from a category two to a category one, indicating that further weakening had occurred overnight. The storm’s maximum sustained winds are 90 miles per hour, with higher gusts, the hurricane center said, but forecasters reminded residents that it remained a very powerful storm.
“Some weakening is expected after Irene reaches the coast of North Carolina,” the hurricane center’s update said, “but Irene is forecast to remain a hurricane as it moves near or over the mid-Atlantic states and New England.”
“The hazards are still the same,” a hurricane specialist at the center, Mike Brennan, said. “The emphasis for this storm is on its size and duration, not necessarily how strong the strongest winds are.”
Signs still abounded of the storm’s potency — spotty power outages, downed trees on roads near the coast, and damage to municipal buildings were all reported overnight, and rescuers in New Hanover County had to end a search for a possible drowning victim in the Cape Fear River because the weather had made it too dangerous to continue.
“The storm is moving more slowly than expected,” said Mazie Swindell Smith, the county manager in Hyde County, which is expecting storm surge from the inland bay that it abuts. “That’s not good as far as rainfall, because it’ll just sit here and dump rain.”
With an estimated 55 million people in the path of a storm the size of California, the East Coast’s major cities were preparing for the worst. Hurricane watches were posted and states of emergency declared for North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and New England. Amtrak canceled train service for the weekend, and airlines began canceling flights, urging travelers to stay home.
For the first time in its history, New York City planned to shut down its entire mass transit and subway system — the world’s largest — beginning at noon on Saturday. At least 370,000 people in the city were ordered evacuated from low-lying areas. New Jersey Transit was set to suspend service then as well.
Organizations from the Pentagon to the American Red Cross were positioning mobile units and preparing shelters with food and water. The Defense Department amassed 18 helicopters to be ready with lifesaving equipment and put them on the Wasp, an aircraft carrier that was moved out to sea from Norfolk, Va., to get out of Irene’s way.
“All of us have to take this storm seriously,” said President Obama, who cut short his family vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., to head back to Washington on Friday. “All indications,” he said, “point to this being a historic hurricane.”
The town manager of Wrightsville Beach, Robert Simpson, said the ocean started pouring over the dunes on Friday and flooded the small beachside community.
With a storm this big and this wet — the National Hurricane Center in Miami said its tropical-storm-force winds stretched 290 miles — when it hits land, the power of the winds might not be as important as the amount of rainfall.
Such a huge dump of sustained rain along with high winds will most likely uproot trees from soggy ground and cause wide-scale loss of power.
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