Powerful hurricane heads towards US coast

Reuters

LOCALS PREPARE: Motorists head north along Route 12 as they evacuate from Hatteras Island, North Carolina as Hurricane Earl approaches.

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Hurricane Earl steamed toward the Eastern Seaboard on Wednesday as communities from North Carolina to New England kept a close eye on the forecast, worried that even a slight shift in the storm's predicted offshore track could put millions of people in the most densely populated part of America in harm's way.

Vacationers along North Carolina's dangerously exposed Outer Banks took advantage of the typical picture-perfect day just before a hurricane arrives to pack their cars and flee inland, cutting short their summer just before the Labour Day three-day holiday weekend.

The governors of North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland declared states of emergency, sea turtle nests on one beach were scooped up and moved to safety, and the crew of the Navy's USS Cole rushed to get home to Norfolk, Virginia, on Wednesday ahead of the bad weather. The destroyer was supposed to return later this week from a seven-month assignment fighting piracy off Somalia.

Farther up the East Coast, emergency officials urged people to have disaster plans and supplies ready and weighed whether to order evacuations as they watched the latest maps from the National Hurricane Centre - namely, the "cone of uncertainty" showing the broad path the storm could take.

Earl was expected to reach the North Carolina coast late Thursday and wheel to the northeast, staying offshore while making its way up the Eastern Seaboard. But forecasters said it could move in closer, perhaps coming ashore in North Carolina, crossing New York's Long Island and passing over the Boston metropolitan area and Cape Cod.

That could make the difference between modestly wet and blustery weather on the one hand, and dangerous storm surge, heavy rain and hurricane-force winds on the other.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Earl was a powerful Category 4 hurricane centred more than 1095km southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, with winds of 217.25kmh.

The only mandatory evacuations were for 30,000 people ordered to leave Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks. Dare County spokeswoman Dorothy Toolan said there was no official notification of the evacuation order, and many residents didn't appear worried.

About 5000 tourists were ordered to leave Ocracoke Island to the south, and officials in Carteret County were evacuating low-lying areas.

Just a light breeze was stirring and there wasn't a cloud in the sky along the Outer Banks - a ribbon of barrier islands a dozen miles or more off the mainland, connected to the rest of the world by a couple of bridges and a ferry. Along the lone highway, hundreds of cars backed up at one of the bridges.

Hurricane warnings were posted for most of the North Carolina coast, with a hurricane watch extending to Delaware and part of Massachusetts.

Red Cross officials in New York prepared to open as many as 50 shelters on Long Island that could house up to 60,000 people in an emergency. No evacuations were issued, but officials were going to re-examine the situation Thursday morning.

Emergency officials on Cape Cod braced for their first major storm since Hurricane Bob brought winds of up to 160kmh to coastal New England in August 1991.

Also on Wednesday, the seventh tropical storm of the season formed far out in the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Gaston had sustained winds of 64kmh and is expected to strengthen into a hurricane this weekend as it moves toward the Leeward Islands.

Tropical Storm Fiona remained north of the Caribbean with winds of 96kmh and is expected to move toward Bermuda over the next several days.

- AP