Raleigh, North Carolina — Carolina Exposed TV Hurricane Irene Coverage. Hurricane-force winds and drenching rains from Irene battered the North Carolina coast early Saturday as the storm began its potentially catastrophic run up the Eastern Seaboard. More than 2 million people were told to move to safer places.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Irene's maximum sustained winds were around 85 mph on Saturday morning, down from about 100 mph a day earlier. But they warned the hurricane would remain a large and powerful one throughout the day as it headed toward the mid-Atlantic.
Hurricane-force winds first arrived near Jacksonville, N.C., around 6:15 a.m. A little more than an hour later, the storm's center passed near the southern tip of North Carolina's Outer Banks. The eye of the storm is typically calm, but the storm's wind and rain are far from over. Forecasters said the landfall has little significance, as Irene remains a dangerous storm.
As the storm's outer bands of wind and rain lashed the North Carolina coast, knocking out power in places, authorities farther north begged people to get out of harm's way. Officials in the northeast, not used to tropical weather, feared it could wreak devastation.
Obama so far had declared emergencies for North Carolina, Virginia, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts.
The storm's center was about 5 miles north of Cape Lookout on North Carolina's Outer Banks early Saturday and lumbering north-northeastward at 14 mph.
Wind and rain knocked out power to more than 210,000 customers along the North Carolina coast, including a hospital in Morehead City. A woman who answered the phone there said the hospital was running on generators.
However, officials already had started rescuing some people from homes as a precaution in Craven County, in case there was a sudden rise in water levels. Stanley Kite, the county's emergency services director, said about 2 feet of water pushed from Pamlico Sound into the Neuse River and was spreading into neighborhoods Saturday morning. Kite said the water was still rising. Carteret County spokeswoman Jo Ann Smith said the Bouge Sound was sending a few feet of water onto roads and into homes at Salter Path.
A coastal town official in North Carolina said witnesses believed a tornado spawned by Irene lifted the roof off the warehouse of a car dealership in Belhaven on Friday night and damaged a mobile home, an outbuilding and trees. At least two piers on the Outer Banks were wiped out.
Forecasters said the core of Irene would roll up the mid-Atlantic coast Saturday night and over southern New England on Sunday.
Hurricane warnings were issued from North Carolina to New York and farther north to the islands of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard off Massachusetts. Evacuation orders covered at least 2.3 million people, including 1 million in New Jersey, 315,000 in Maryland, 300,000 in
North Carolina, 200,000 in Virginia and 100,000 in Delaware. Officials and experts said it was likely the largest number of people ever threatened by a single hurricane in the U.S.
U.S. airlines canceled at least 6,100 flights through Monday, grounding hundreds of thousands of passengers as the storm could strike major airports from Washington to Boston.
New York City ordered more than 300,000 people who live in flood-prone areas to leave, including Battery Park City at the southern tip of Manhattan, Coney Island and the beachfront Rockaways.
After the Outer Banks, the next target for Irene was the Hampton Roads region of southeast Virginia, a jagged network of inlets and rivers that floods easily. Emergency officials have said the region is more threatened by storm surge, the high waves that accompany a storm, than wind. Gas stations there were low on fuel Friday, and grocery stores scrambled to keep water and bread on the shelves.
In Delaware, Gov. Jack Markell ordered an evacuation of coastal areas on the peninsula the state shares with Maryland and Virginia.
In Baltimore's Fells Point neighborhood, one of the city's oldest waterfront neighborhoods, people filled sandbags and placed them at the entrances to buildings. A few miles away at the Port of Baltimore, vehicles and cranes continued to unload huge cargo ships that were rushing to offload and get away from the storm.
Residents also were ordered to evacuate in Ocean City, Md. A steady rain fell Saturday morning on the city's boardwalk. A small amusement park was shut down and darkened, including a ride called the "hurricane." Businesses were boarded up, many painted with messages like "Irene don't be mean!"
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Hurricane Irene Landfall - In The Eye 90mph Gusts Beaufort, NCby samtheweatherman12,947 views
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