Pack n send is posting part of the information posted by MSNBC. While we are in the process of adjusting freight shipments for our customers, and rescheduling when necessary, we are keeping an eye on the storm.
HATTERAS ISLAND, N.C. — Hurricane Earl was barreling toward the Eastern Seaboard Thursday with winds swirling at around 145 mph, as forecasters issued a new warning for New York's Long Island and tried to work out how badly North Carolina would be hit.
With the storm expected to start hitting North Carolina later Thursday, officials expanded mandatory evacuation orders across new areas of the state's low-lying barrier islands.
The orders affect all visitors throughout Dare County as well as residents and visitors to the popular town of Nags Head, county emergency relief officials said.
Mandatory evacuations, similar to those already in effect for Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island, were also ordered for the beach communities at Morehead City, authorities said.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami issued a tropical storm warning early Thursday for the coast of Long Island and a hurricane watch was issued for areas of Massachusetts. A hurricane warning was already in effect for the North Carolina coast.
Canadian officials also put parts of the Nova Scotia coast under a tropical storm watch.
Category 4 storm Earl, which has maximum sustained winds near 145 mph, was located about 410 miles south of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and was moving north-northwest near 18 mph.
Forecasters said the storm had strengthened slightly, but expected gradual weakening to start later Thursday. Hurricane-force winds extend outward 90 miles from its center.
Watches and warnings were posted along the Atlantic coast for most of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and part of Massachusetts, alerting residents that hurricane and tropical storm conditions were possible within 36 to 48 hours.
No storm has threatened such a broad swath of the U.S. shoreline — the densely populated coast from North Carolina to New England — since Hurricane Bob in 1991, National Hurricane Center spokesman Dennis Feltgen said.
The last Category 4 to approach the Outer Banks was Helene in 1950, NBC News Meteorologist Bill Karins reported.
'Very significant impact'
Large swells roiled the coastline and experts warned Earl would bring dangerously high seas.
The first winds were expected to reach the North Carolina's barrier islands by Thursday afternoon and gain force during the night, though the hurricane is then expected to start weakening, the NHC said.
Tourists were largely gone from North Carolina's Outer Banks, but those resolute residents who stayed behind said they were prepared to face down the powerful hurricane. The islands jut out into the Atlantic and are frequently smacked by hurricanes and storms.
"There is still concern that this track, the core of the storm, could shift a little farther to the west and have a very significant impact on the immediate coastline. Our present track keeps it offshore, but you never know," Feltgen said.
The storm was forecast to pass just off Cape Hatteras, bringing wind gusts of up to 100 mph and several feet of storm surge both from the Atlantic and the sounds to the west of the islands.
Evacuations continued Thursday with residents and visitors leaving a barrier island in Carteret County, N.C.
Emergency services director Jo Ann Smith, of Carteret County, said she wasn't sure how many people were affected by the order to leave the Bogue Banks areas.
Unlike some of the barrier islands on the Outer Banks who had to take a ferry, Smith said people could simply leave in their cars.
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