Wednesday, September 12, 2018
About 1.7 million people in three states were warned to get out of the way of Hurricane Florence, a hair-raising storm taking dead aim at the Carolinas with 130 mph winds and potentially ruinous rains. The military aircraft were moved inland and National Guardsmen activated as “monster” this disastrous storm took aim at the southern East Coast amid warnings on Tuesday this storm may be “nothing like you’ve ever seen.”
Hurricane Florence was expected to blow ashore late Thursday or early Friday, then slow down and wring itself out for days, unloading 1 to 2½ feet of rain that could cause flooding well inland and wreak environmental havoc by washing over industrial waste sites and hog farms.
The weather forecasters and politicians pleaded with the public to take the warnings seriously and minced no words in describing the threat.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said that this storm is a monster. It’s big and it’s vicious. It is an extremely, dangerous, life-threatening, historic hurricane.
President Trump also declared states of emergency for North and South Carolina and Virginia, and canceled campaign events Thursday and Friday in anticipation of the storm. North and South Carolina and Virginia ordered mass evacuations along the coast. But getting out of harm’s way could prove difficult.
Hurricane Florence is so wide that a life-threatening storm surge was being pushed 300 miles ahead of its eye, and so wet that a swath of states from South Carolina to Ohio and Pennsylvania could get deluged. People across the region rushed to buy bottled water and other supplies, board up their homes or get out of town.
A line of heavy traffic moved away from the coast on Interstate 40, the main route between the port city of Wilmington and inland Raleigh. Between the two cities, about two hours apart, the traffic flowed smoothly in places and became gridlocked in others because of fender-benders.
Only a trickle of vehicles was going in the opposite direction, including pickup trucks carrying plywood and other building materials.
The service stations started running out of gas as far west as Raleigh, with bright yellow bags, signs or rags placed over the pumps to show they were out of order.
At 2 p.m., Hurricane Florence was centered 845 miles (1,360 km) southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, moving at 17 mph (28 kph). It was a potentially catastrophic Category 4 storm but was expected to keep drawing energy from the warm water and intensify to near Category 5, which means winds of 157 mph (253 kph) or higher.
Tags: hurricane, Hurricane Florence, National Guardsmen, US
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