Slowing and strengthening, Hurricane Dorian worries Florida

MIAMI - Hurricane Dorian churned toward Florida with more powerful winds and drenching rains on Friday, wreaking havoc on people's Labor Day weekend plans in one of America's biggest vacation destinations.

In the Bahamas, evacuations were underway in the two days before Dorian was expected to bring a life-threatening storm surge of as much as 3 to 4.5 meters to the northwest of the islands, the National Hurricane Center said.

On Florida's east coast, where Dorian's winds were expected to begin hitting on Monday morning, items ranging from bottled water to plywood were being bought as quickly as they could be restocked. There were reports some gas stations had run out of fuel.

"They’re buying everything and anything that applies to a hurricane, flashlights, batteries, generators," said Amber Hunter, 30, assistant manager at Cape Canaveral's ACE Handiman hardware store.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center warned that Dorian could further strengthen and batter Florida with winds of over 210 kph. That would put millions of people at risk along with big vacation parks such as Walt Disney World, the NASA launchpads along the Space Coast, and even President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

NHC Director Ken Graham saw a worrying, unpredictable situation for Florida with the hurricane set to hit land somewhere up its east coast.

"Slow is not our friend, the longer you keep this around the more rain we get," said Graham in a Facebook Live video. While it was unclear where the hurricane would make landfall, the results were expected to be devastating: "Big time impacts, catastrophic events, for some areas 140 mph winds, not a good situation," said Graham.

Mindful of that warning, Cocoa Beach Mayor Ben Malik was putting up storm shutters on his Florida home on Friday afternoon and worrying about the flooding Dorian could unleash on his barrier island town.

"It's slowed down, we’re looking at a multiple day event, we were hoping it would just barrel through and leave,” Malik said of forecasts Dorian could sit over Florida for up to two days dumping up to 46 centimeters of water. "I’m really worried about the amount of rain we’ll be getting."

WEEK'S WORTH OF FOOD

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis urged residents to have at least a week's worth of food, water and medicine.

Fort Pierce Mayor Linda Hudson urged its 46,000 residents who planned to evacuate to go now.

"It's decision time now. Don’t wait until I-95 north and I-75 north and the turnpike are parking lots," said Hudson, who lived through two devastating hurricanes in 2004.

Dorian's course remained unpredictable. One of Florida's last major hurricanes, 2017's Irma, swept up the peninsula, instead of hitting the east coast.

Florida residents like Jamison Weeks, general manager at Conchy Joe's Seafood in Port St. Lucie, planned on staying put.

"I’m planning on boarding up my house this evening," said Weeks. "The mood is a little tense, everybody’s a little nervous and just trying to prepare as best as possible."

In the Bahamas, Freeport's international airport was set to close Friday night and would not open until Sept. 3, amid worries Dorian would slam tourist hotspots Grand Bahama and Abaco on Saturday.

Dorian began on Friday over the Atlantic as a Category 2 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale but strengthened to a Category 3 with sustained winds of 185 kph, the NHC said. It is moving just at 16 kph, giving it more time to intensify before making landfall.

Some 2,000 National Guard troops will have been mobilized for the hurricane by the end of Friday, with 2,000 more joining them on Saturday, Florida National Guard Maj. Gen. James Eifert said.

Florida officials also were making sure all nursing homes and assisted living facilities had generators.

Only one in five Florida nursing homes plans to rely on deliveries of temporary generators to keep their air conditioners running if Dorian knocks out power, a state agency said on Friday, short of the standard set by a law passed after a dozen people died in a sweltering nursing home after 2017's Hurricane Irma.

North of Cape Canaveral, the Kennedy Space Center's 400-foot launch tower was dragged inside a towering vehicle assembly building to shelter it from Dorian, according to a video posted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)-owned space launch center.

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Hurricane Florence makes landfall, set to deluge Carolinas

WILMINGTON, N.C.—Hurricane Florence crashed into the Carolinas as a giant, slow-moving storm on Friday, threatening catastrophic flooding while leaving scores in need of rescue from rising waters and hundreds of thousands without power.

The center of the hurricane's eye came ashore at about 0715 EDT near Wrightsville Beach close to Wilmington, North Carolina, with sustained winds of 150 kph, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

North Carolina's governor, Roy Cooper, said Florence was set to cover almost all of the state in several feet of water.

National Weather Service forecaster Brandon Locklear predicted Florence would drop up to eight months of rain in two or three days.

There were no immediate reports of storm-related deaths or serious injuries, but authorities said more than 100 people were rescued further north in New Bern, where the downtown area of the city of 30,000 people was under water.

"WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU," New Bern city officials said on Twitter. "You may need to move up to the second story, or to your attic, but WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU."

More than 60 people, including many children and pets, were evacuated from a hotel in Jacksonville, North Carolina, after strong winds caused parts of the roof to collapse, local officials said. No one was hurt.

More than 370,000 people were without power in North Carolina early on Friday, state officials said. Utility companies said millions were expected to lose power and that restoring it could take weeks.


THOUSANDS IN SHELTERS

Forecasters said the Category 1 storm's extreme size meant it could batter the U.S. East Coast with hurricane-force winds for nearly a full day.

About 10 million people could be affected by the storm and more than 1 million were ordered to evacuate the coasts of the Carolinas and Virginia.

Almost 20,000 people had taken refuge in 157 emergency shelters, Cooper said.

There was a threat from tornadoes as Florence made landfall, the NHC said. South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster said the heavy rain could trigger landslides in the west of his state.

Storm surges could push as far as 2 miles (3 km) inland, NHC said, while heavy rains were forecast to extend into the Appalachian Mountains, affecting parts of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia.

Emergency declarations were in force in Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.

Still, some residents ignored calls to evacuate.

"I had a lot of fear initially but I'm glad to be inside and safe," said Zelda Allen, a 74-year-old retired tax accountant from Hampstead, North Carolina, who was riding out the storm at Wilmington's Hotel Ballast with her husband.

"I'm worried about what I might find when I go home, though," she said.

(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Additional reporting by Gene Cherry in Raleigh and Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by John Stonestreet and Bernadette Baum)

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Hurricane Florence shifts south; Georgia and Carolinas hunker down

WILMINGTON, N.C. - Fears about Hurricane Florence spread south on Wednesday, with Georgia declaring a state of emergency after officials in the Carolinas urged people to evacuate the coast ahead of the storm's expected pounding winds and rain-driven floods.

Florence weakened slightly to a Category 3 storm on a five-step scale but had maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour (201 km per hour) as of 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), down from 130 mph earlier in the day. Its trajectory showed its center most likely to strike the southern coast of North Carolina by late Thursday or early Friday, the National Hurricane Center said.

Updated NHC forecasts showed the storm lingering near the coast of the Carolinas, carrying days of heavy rains that could bring intense inland flooding from South Carolina to Virginia. Parts of North Carolina could get 40 inches (1 meter) of rain.

Jeff Byard of the Federal Emergency Management Agency invoked a former boxing champion to warn residents that Florence would bring "a Mike Tyson punch to the Carolina coast."

"Heed the warnings," said Byard, adding there was "well over $20 billion" in FEMA's disaster relief fund.

Tens of thousands of homes and businesses could be flooded in North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper warned.

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, concerned the storm would bring its devastation south, issued an emergency declaration for all 159 counties in his state.

More than 1 million people have been ordered to evacuate the coastlines of the Carolinas and Virginia.

Duke Energy Corp expected between 25 percent and 75 percent of its 4 million customers would lose power in the Carolinas. Spokesman Howard Fowler said restoration could take "weeks instead of days," even though 20,000 workers, including crews from outside the area, were standing by.

The NHC said the first tropical storm-force winds of at least 39 mph (63 kph) would hit the region early on Thursday with the storm's center reaching the coast Friday.

GETTING READY

Emergency preparations in the area included activating 2,800 National Guard troops in North Carolina, stockpiling food, setting up shelters, switching traffic patterns so that major roads led away from shore and securing 16 nuclear power reactors in the three-state region.

Wilmington, North Carolina, just north of where the hurricane is expected to come ashore, was sunny around midday on Wednesday as the town appeared to be emptying.

"I'm not approaching Florence from fear or panic," said Brad Corpening, 35, who planned to ride out the storm in his boarded-up delicatessen in Wilmington. "It's going to happen. We just need to figure out how to make it through."

Officials in New Hanover County, which includes Wilmington, have stockpiled enough food and water for 60,000 people for four days, along with more than 28,000 tarps. Shelters in the city were filling and some people were being bused inland to Raleigh, even though some residents there were told they might have to evacuate because of flooding.

"It's going to be bad," said Woody White, chairman of the New Hanover County Commissioners. "But no matter how bad it's going to be, it will pass and our job will be to rebuild this community together, and that's what we're going to do."

Even miles away from the Atlantic, North Carolina residents in low-lying areas are boarding up and emptying stores. "A lot of our storefronts are boarded up," said Lynn Davis, town manager for Belhaven which sits at sea level in northeastern North Carolina. "People are taking down awnings and U-Haul trucks have come in and take the entire contents of stores."

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'Monster' Hurricane Florence to pummel US Southeast for days

WILMINGTON - Hurricane Florence, on track to become the first Category 4 storm to make a direct hit on North Carolina in 6 decades, howled closer to shore on Tuesday, threatening to unleash deadly pounding surf, days of torrential rain and severe flooding.

Fierce winds and massive waves are expected to lash the coasts of North and South Carolina and Virginia even before Florence makes landfall on Friday, and its rains will take a heavy toll for miles inland, the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned.

Although Florence was still days from arrival, authorities took extraordinary measures to move people out of harm's way. More than 1 million residents have been ordered to evacuate from coastal areas of the 3 states, closing university campuses, schools and factories.

Packing maximum sustained winds of 140 miles per hour (225 km per hour), the storm ranked as a Category 4 on the 5-step Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale and was expected to grow stronger and larger over the next few days, the NHC said.

"This storm is a monster," North Carolina Governor 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."

He cited forecasts showing Florence was likely to stall over North Carolina, "bringing days and days of rain."

To hasten evacuations from coastal South Carolina, officials reversed the flow of traffic on some highways so all major roads led away from shore. Miles of traffic slowed to a crawl along the main highway along North Carolina's Outer Banks barrier islands.

Maps of Florence's trajectory showed the center of the storm most likely to strike the southern coast of North Carolina. The last Category 4 hurricane to plow directly into North Carolina was Hazel in 1954, a devastating storm that killed 19 people and destroyed some 15,000 homes.

But NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen stressed the effects of Florence would be widely felt. Tropical storm-force winds would extend nearly 300 miles across 3 states. A hurricane warning was posted for most of the Carolina coast north to the Virginia border.

In addition to flooding the coast with wind-driven storm surges of seawater as high as 13 feet (4 m), Florence could dump 15 to 25 inches (38 to 64 cm) of rain, with up to 35 inches (89 cm) in some spots, forecasters said.

LONG-TERM POWER OUTAGES POSSIBLE

Communities in Florence's path could be without electricity for weeks due to downed power lines and flooded equipment, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Brock Long said.

Utility companies deployed crews and gear in advance, according to trade group, the Edison Electric Institute. Workers from at least 15 states were en route to the region to assist with what could be a lengthy power restoration effort.

Crews also prepared 16 nuclear reactors in the three-state region for the storm. One power station, Duke Energy Corp's Brunswick plant, the closest to the area where landfall is forecast, faced a likely shutdown as a precaution. Shutdowns also were possible at two more plants in the path of predicted hurricane-force winds.

The American Red Cross said more than 700 workers were headed to the target area while shelters were set up to take in those who could not evacuate. A hospital in Hampton, Virginia, was transferring patients to safer places.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday signed declarations of emergency for North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, freeing up federal resources for storm response.

"We are sparing no expense. We are totally prepared," Trump said at the White House.

Trump faced severe criticism for his administration's response to Hurricane Maria last year in Puerto Rico. Some 3,000 people died in the aftermath of that storm.

COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS

Days before its arrival, Florence was already disrupting commercial operations.

Boeing Co suspended work on Tuesday at the South Carolina plant where it assembles 787 widebody jetliners, and a Volvo automobile plant in South Carolina's evacuation zone was also closed, company officials said.

Smithfield Foods Inc said it would shut down the world's largest hog-slaughtering facility in Tar Heel, North Carolina, on Thursday and Friday due to the hurricane.

Residents prepared by boarding up their homes and stocking up on food, water and other essentials, stripping many grocery store shelves of merchandise. Some gasoline stations also ran low on fuel.

Not everyone was in a hurry to leave. Charles Mullen, 81, a longtime resident of Hatteras Island, North Carolina, said he had ridden out many storms and that most locals were planning to stay unless Florence took aim at Hatteras.

"If it decides to come here, we're gone," he said. 

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More than 1 million under evacuation as Hurricane Florence nears Carolinas

Could make landfall in Carolinas on Thursday

North Carolina governor says entire state may be impacted

Inland flooding expected to be intense 

HOLDEN BEACH, North Carolina - Florence, the most powerful storm to menace the U.S. mainland this year, intensified into a Category 4 hurricane as it howled closer to the Carolinas on Monday, prompting evacuations of more than 1 million people to higher ground.

Packing maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour (209 kph), the storm was due to gain even greater strength before making landfall early on Thursday, bringing heavy rains with the potential to unleash widespread, severe flooding, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami.

"Florence is expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane through Thursday," the NHC said in a bulletin.

Maps of the storm's trajectory showed it likely to come ashore somewhere near the border of North Carolina and South Carolina. The governors of both states declared states of emergency.

"We do not want to risk one South Carolina life in this hurricane," Governor Henry McMaster told a news conference.

He estimated about 1 million residents would flee the coast of his state, following earlier orders for the evacuation of more than 50,000 people from the southern-most Outer Banks barrier islands of North Carolina. An estimated 250,000 more people from the northern Outer Banks were due to be sent to higher ground starting Tuesday at midday.

"We are in the bull's-eye," North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said at a news conference. "This is going to be a statewide event."

OFF CAPE FEAR

Florence grew into a major hurricane on Monday morning and was upgraded again to a Category 4 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane strength at midday as its top sustained wind speeds reached 130 mph. At that point the storm was centered about 1,170 miles (1,880 km) east-southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, the NHC said.

The United States was hit with a series of high-powered hurricanes last year, including Hurricane Maria, which killed about 3,000 people in Puerto Rico, and Hurricane Harvey, which killed 68 and caused an estimated $1.25 billion in damage from catastrophic flooding in Houston.

U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration was harshly criticized as being slow to respond to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, canceled a political rally planned for Friday in Jackson, Mississippi, over safety concerns related to Florence, his campaign said.

Florence could bring a deadly coastal storm surge, and inland flooding as far north as Virginia, the NHC said.

Immediately to the north of Virginia, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said his state was also was "preparing for the potential of historic, catastrophic and life-threatening flooding."

Historically, 90 percent of fatalities from hurricanes, tropical storms and tropical depressions have been caused by water, NHC spokesman Dennis Feltgen said. Some 27 percent of the deaths have come from rain-driven flooding, sometimes hundreds of miles inland.

'CAN'T PLAY AROUND'

In Holden Beach, North Carolina, in the storm's path, longtime residents were boarding up homes and securing possessions.

"It's scary to all of us. We know we can't play around with this," said Jennifer Oosterwyk, who owns the Sugar Britches boutique on Holden Beach and lives in nearby Wilmington.

Oosterwyk was gathering tax documents and other important papers from her store on Monday, and said she planned to drive 150 miles (240 km) inland to ride out the storm in the town of Cary.

As the storm advanced, Monday afternoon was a postcard-perfect day on Holden Beach with bright blue skies, placid puffy clouds and light breezes. By 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), the previously calm surf began to show some chop.

The U.S. military said it was sending an advance team to Raleigh, North Carolina, to coordinate with federal and state partners. It said about 750 military personnel will be designated to provide support.

The U.S. Navy said it was sending nearly 30 ships from coastal Virginia out of port to ride out the storm.

Other military personnel, however, could find themselves directly in harm's way.

The largest U.S. Marine Corps base on the East Coast, Camp Lejeune and its extensive beachfront northeast of Wilmington, North Carolina, lie within the NHC's forecast "cone" for possible landfall.

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Hurricane Hector barrels towards Hawaii

Hurricane Hector regained strength in the eastern Pacific late on Sunday and swelled into a Category 4 storm again with sustained 140 mph winds as it stayed on target to possibly hit Hawaii by midweek, officials said.

Some predictions put the storm on a virtual collision course with the Kilauea Volcano on the southern part of the island. Lava has been spewing from vents on its eastern flank since May 3 and its summit crater is collapsing.

The National Hurricane Center put Hector about 1,130 miles southeast of Hawaii's Big Island and its hurricane force winds stretched 30 miles out from its center with tropical force winds of 74 mph extending out 105 miles, the NHC said.

It was expected to pick up speed from its 14 mph westward crawl into the central Pacific on Monday, the center said in an advisory late on Sunday.

The NHC forecast gradual weakening on Monday night through to Wednesday.

It was uncertain if it would hit or just brush by the southern edge of the Big Island, said a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park Maryland.

Scientists differ over how hurricanes and volcanoes might interact, including the question of whether low atmospheric pressure could help trigger an eruption.

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'Pray for us': Millions hunker down as deadly Irma slams into Florida

MIAMI/FORT MYERS, Florida -- Millions of people huddled in shelters or battened-down homes in Florida on Sunday morning as Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, hit the state with 210-kph winds.

The National Hurricane Center forecast potentially deadly storm surges -- water driven ashore by the winds -- of up to 15 feet along some parts of the coast. As the storm made landfall on the Florida Keys archipelago off the tip of southern Florida, torrential rains and lashing winds knocked out power to nearly 800,000 homes and businesses on the mainland, according to utilities.

"Pray for us," Florida Governor Rick Scott said in an ABC News interview as his state braced for the massive storm, which has already left a trail of destruction through the Caribbean.

Irma, which prompted one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history, is expected to cause billions of dollars in damage to the third-most-populous U.S. state, a major tourism hub, with an economy comprising about 5 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.

Irma was a Category 4 hurricane raging in the lower Florida Keys as of 9 a.m. EDT, on a path that will take it up Florida's Gulf of Mexico coast near population centers including Tampa and St. Petersburg, the NHC reported. Forecasters also warned tornadoes could form in large portions of the state.

Irma, which killed at least 22 people as it tore through Caribbean islands toward Florida, has already claimed at least one life in the state. Emergency responders in the Florida Keys said they pulled a man's body from his pickup truck, which had crashed into a tree in high winds.

But officials say it is the water and not the winds that people should fear most.

"Storm surge has the highest potential to kill the most amount of people and to cause the most amount of damage," Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency told "Fox News Sunday."

The time to evacuate the Keys had passed, he said, "It's too late for folks in Monroe County, the Florida Keys. Maximum radius winds and the eye are moving over as we speak."

STORM BABY

One woman in Miami's Little Haiti neighborhood delivered her own baby, with medical personnel coaching her on the phone because emergency responders were not able to reach her, the city of Miami said on Twitter. The two are now at the hospital, it said.

Ahead of the storm, officials in Florida had ordered a total of 6.3 million people, or about a third of the state's population, to evacuate.

But some state residents planned to ride out the storm in their homes. Midway up the state's Gulf Coast in Clearwater, Sarah Griffin said she planned to hunker down in a closet in her boarded-up concrete house.

"You've just got to have plenty of beer, Captain Morgan, vodka, (and) you'll get through," said Griffin, 52.

The NHC has put out a hurricane warning and a tropical storm warning stretching through almost all of Florida into Georgia and South Carolina, home to more than 20 million people.

Irma comes just days after Hurricane Harvey dumped record-setting rain in Texas, causing unprecedented flooding, killing at least 60 people and leaving an estimated $180 billion in property damage in its wake. Almost three months remain in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs through November.

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Hurricane Arthur makes landfall on US East Coast

MIAMI - Hurricane Arthur made landfall on the North Carolina shore late Thursday, as millions of Americans braced for its impact along the East Coast on the eve of the Independence Day holiday.

The National Hurricane Center said Arthur made landfall around 11:15 pm (0315 GMT Friday) over the Shackleford Banks between Cape Lookout and Beaufort.

Just before it made landfall, Hurricane Arthur strengthened into a potentially destructive category-two storm.

The first storm of the Atlantic hurricane season was packing maximum winds of 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour, forecasters said, warning North Carolina -- home to many popular holiday destinations -- would bear the brunt of Arthur's fury.

North Carolina state Governor Pat McCrory said emergency preparation efforts had been made more complicated by the arrival of thousands of tourists, who have flocked to beaches for the annual July 4 holiday pilgrimage.

Heavy rain and strong winds lashed the North Carolina coast.

The storms is expected to churn up the coast and threaten areas as far north as Nova Scotia in Canada.

After ratcheting the hurricane up a grade, the National Hurricane Center predicted there would be "little change in strength," and that the storm would fizzle out to a post-tropical cyclone on Saturday.

But in the meantime thousands of people were already without power in North Carolina, news reports said, and there was localized flooding in areas including the coastal city of Wilmington.

"Our main issue is the health and safety of our citizens and those people who are visiting North Carolina," McCrory said.

Emergency declarations were issued by several counties in the southern state, which opened emergency shelters and ordered evacuations in low-lying areas.

"As the hurricane moves north, more counties are likely to declare a state of emergency," McCrory added.

National Hurricane Center forecasters warned of "large and damaging waves" and cautioned: "Preparations to protect life and property should have already been completed."

- No 'stupid hat' -

McCrory urged residents and tourists to use common sense, to stay out of the water and out of harm's way, with storm surges of up to five feet (1.5 meters) predicted.

Up to eight inches (20 centimeters) of rain were expected in coastal areas.

"Don't put your 'stupid hat' on," McCrory said.

"Let's hope for the best, pray for the best, that Arthur clears out quickly so we can all get back to celebrating our country's independence, with our families and friends on North Carolina's beautiful beaches."

As many as half a million visitors had been expected in the coastal Carolinas for the national holiday, the region's biggest tourist weekend.

Authorities issued a mandatory evacuation order for Hatteras Island and a voluntary evacuation order for Ocracoke Island, both in North Carolina's Outer Banks, CNN reported.

But it was not just North Carolina -- where tornado warnings were activated in some areas -- that was bracing for Arthur's impact.

The storm, which strengthened into a hurricane earlier Thursday, threatened to scuttle traditional Independence Day weekend picnics, parades and fireworks displays for millions of Americans along the East Coast, as far north as New England.

Dangerous storm swells were expected as far south as central Florida, weather officials said.

The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and runs through November 30.

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