Nags Head, N.C. – Hurricane Ophelia crept up the North Carolina coast today with high wind, driving rain and pounding surf that washed away a barrier island street, cut off electricity to thousands and threatened widespread flooding.
The storm had sustained wind of 85 mph this afternoon, up from 75 mph early in the morning, the National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane warnings were shifted northward, covering the entire North Carolina coast from the South Carolina line to Virginia, where a tropical storm warning covered the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.
The northern side of Ophelia’s eyewall – the circle of strongest wind surrounding the eye – was expected to reach North Carolina’s southeast coast late today, the hurricane center said.
Up the coast on the Outer Banks, officials warned that Ophelia could bring 11 hours of hurricane-force wind to Hatteras Island.
Gov. Mike Easley issued a last-chance warning to residents to get out the way of anticipated flooding from hours of sustained rain and storm surges that could reach 11 feet.
“We have a concern that people in flood-prone areas need to get out,” Easley said at an afternoon news conference. “We’re asking and begging them to do that because it’s going to be hard to get them out later.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency had at least 200 workers on the ground in North Carolina for the first post-Katrina hurricane, a larger-than-usual contingent given Ophelia’s size.
FEMA also put Coast Guard Rear Adm. Brian Peterman in place to command any federal response the storm may require.
Unlike Hurricane Katrina, which made a head-on charge at the Gulf Coast two weeks ago, Ophelia had slowly meandered and waxed and waned in strength since forming off the Florida coast last week, making it hard for some to take the storm seriously.
Today dawned bright and sunny, but windy, on the Outer Banks, where stormy weather is a way of life.
“It’s an island. The water will come over, it’ll go out, and we’ll do it all over again,” Tiffany Bigham, 27, said after she finished boarding up her living room windows. Bigham, a lifelong resident of Hatteras Island, said she and all the other locals she knows were planning to stay put, despite an order that everyone evacuate the island.
However, the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast prompted others to take Ophelia more seriously.
“We got such a dose of it on TV, it’s almost impossible not to be concerned,” said Roger Kehoe, 68, of Yardley, Pa., one of the visitors who left a campground at Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Rain had started falling Tuesday in the state’s southeast corner, and by this morning Brunswick County had measured 6.5 inches. Meteorologists warned that some areas could get a total of 15 inches as the storm slowly crossed the region.
A 50-foot section of street was washed away by heavy surf at Brunswick County’s Ocean Isle Beach, about 100 miles northwest of the storm’s center, and other streets were under water, emergency officials said. A message at the police department said the island’s only bridge to the mainland was closed.
Some 50,000 homes and business were without power in eastern North Carolina, including the entire barrier island community of Kure Beach – population 1,700 – south of Wilmington, Easley said.
Northeast of Wilmington, Onslow County reported some docks underwater near the New River Inlet and 215 people in shelters.
At 2 p.m. EDT, Ophelia’s large eye was centered about 40 miles southeast of Wilmington and about 70 miles southwest of Cape Lookout on the Outer Banks. Slight strengthening was possible.
Hurricane-force wind of at least 74 mph extended 50 miles out from the center.
Ophelia had accelerated to 7 mph, moving toward the north-northeast. It was expected to gradually turn toward the northeast and pick up a little speed by late today, with the center making landfall along or just south of the Outer Banks on Thursday, the hurricane center said.
The forecast track had it then moving out to sea.
Along the exposed Outer Banks, everyone was ordered to evacuate Hatteras Island, visitors had been ordered off Ocracoke Island and the National Park Service closed the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills. Schools were closed and nearly 100 people had checked into a shelter in an elementary school in Wilmington.
Bruce McIlvaine of Logan Township, N.J., was among those who cleared out Tuesday, packing to leave Hatteras Island before his vacation ended.
“I don’t really want to mess with it,” he said. “You’re on a spit of land a dozen miles into the ocean.” A surfer was missing along the South Carolina coast, with the search suspended because of rough seas.
Ophelia is the 15th named storm and seventh hurricane in this year’s busy Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.
