Forecasters fear residents are not taking the hurricane, with its 105 mph winds, seriously enough.
By Associated Press
Published September 17, 2003
[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]
Ben Carignon, left, Chris Downs and ruth Shafer of Kevin Devil Hills, N.C., fill sandbags Tuesday on the beach.
RODANTHE, N.C. - Cars, recreational vehicles and SUVs streamed inland from North Carolina's Outer Banks on Tuesday as up to 90,000 people were urged to get out of the way of Hurricane Isabel, weakened but still the most powerful storm in four years to menace the mid-Atlantic coast.
Isabel's winds down-shifted during the day to about 105 mph from a peak of 160 mph over the weekend. But forecasters said the hurricane could strengthen when it crosses the warm waters of the Gulf Stream on a projected course that could take it straight into the Outer Banks early Thursday.
By Tuesday evening, grocery stores and restaurants were closed or shuttered and the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was barred to visitors. The main beach highway, N.C. 12, was unusually barren and the beaches nearly desolate.
"Even a lot of old salts are bailing out," Brian Simmons said as he placed plywood across the window of Stoney's Seafood in Avon. "I don't know if it's some vibe they feel or something."
Coastal residents from South Carolina to New Jersey boarded up and stocked up. North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley declared a state of emergency, allowing him to use the National Guard and also seek federal disaster relief after the storm passes.
Easley urged residents to evacuate low-lying coastal areas.
"Now is the time to prepare," he said. "The course and intensity of this storm may change very quickly."
Thousands of tourists and others abandoned parts of North Carolina's Outer Banks as rough surf pounded the thin, 120-mile-long chain of islands.
Some residents treated the evacuation orders as just a suggestion. David Kidwell, a 64-year-old retiree, was staying put at his home in Kitty Hawk.
"If it was a 5, I'd be gone. If it was a 4, I'd be gone. But right now it's looking like a 2 or less," he said. "That's just nothing more than a big nor'easter as far as I'm concerned."
National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield said he was concerned people were not taking the storm seriously enough because it had weakened to a Category 2.
"We need to get people's attention because this storm can cause a lot of damage and loss of life if people are unprepared," he said.
At 11 p.m., Isabel was near latitude 28.5 north and longitude 71.7 west or about 520 miles southeast of North Carolina's Cape Hatteras. It was moving northwest at about 8 mph and was down to a Category 2 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale of intensity, from Category 5 over the weekend.
A hurricane watch was posted from Little River Inlet, S.C., to Chincoteague, Va., including a large part of the Chesapeake Bay.
Under blue skies, a parade of 40 warships, including the USS Ronald Reagan, the newest aircraft carrier, steamed out of the Norfolk Naval Station for the Atlantic to weather the storm.
After hitting land, Isabel could also spread heavy rain from North Carolina all the way to the New England states.
The last major hurricane to threaten the mid-Atlantic coast was Floyd in 1999. The Category 2 storm, with 110 mph winds, came ashore near Cape Fear, N.C., and continued along the coast into New England, causing 56 deaths and $4.6-billion in damage.
Colleges and universities in eastern Virginia said they would close today for the rest of the week, and ordered students to leave.
Isabel kept stores bustling. Lowe's estimated it sold 10,000 generators in nine days to coastal residents, and Home Depot said it had trucks coming in from as far as Toronto and Texas to help meet demand.
