Hurricane Erin forces evacuations but is expected to stay offshore
Hurricane Erin forced tourists to cut their vacations short on North Carolina’s Outer Banks even though the monster storm is expected to stay offshore after lashing part of the Caribbean with rain and wind on Monday.
Evacuations were ordered on a couple of barrier islands along the Carolina shore as authorities warned the storm could churn up dangerous rip currents and swamp roads with waves of 15 feet.
Tourists and residents waited for hours in a line of cars Monday at Ocracoke Island’s ferry dock — the only way to leave other than by plane.
“We definitely thought twice,” said Seth Brotherton, of Catfish, North Carolina, whose weeklong fishing trip ended abruptly. “But they said ‘mandatory’ and that pretty much means, ‘get out of here.’”
Forecasters are confident that Erin will turn north and away from the eastern U.S., but it’s still expected to strengthen in the coming days and whip up wild waves and tropical force winds along the coastal islands, said Dave Roberts of the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The storm intensified to a Category 4 with 140 mph maximum sustained winds Monday while it pelted the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the southeast Bahamas, according to the center.
Government officials in the Turks and Caicos Islands said all services were suspended on three of its islands and ordered residents there to stay home.
By Monday afternoon, the storm was located about 140 miles north of Grand Turk Island and about 850 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras.
On North Carolina’s Outer Banks, coastal flooding was expected to begin Tuesday and continue through Thursday.
The evacuations that began Monday on Hatteras Island and Ocracoke Island came at the height of tourist season on the thin stretch of low-lying barrier islands that jut far into the Atlantic Ocean and are increasingly vulnerable to storm surges.
A year ago, Hurricane Ernesto stayed hundreds of miles offshore from the U.S. Eastern Seaboard yet still produced high surf and swells that caused coastal damage.
This time there are concerns that several days of heavy surf, high winds and waves could wash out parts of the main highway, the National Weather Service said. Some routes could be impassible for several days, authorities warned.
Scientists have linked the rapid intensification of hurricanes in the Atlantic to climate change. Global warming is causing the atmosphere to hold more water vapor and is spiking ocean temperatures, and warmer waters give hurricanes fuel to unleash more rain and strengthen more quickly.
Erin, the year’s first Atlantic hurricane, reached a dangerous Category 5 status Saturday with 160 mph winds before weakening. It is expected to remain a large hurricane into midweek.
Erin’s outer edges hit parts of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands with heavy rains and tropical storm winds on Sunday and knocked out power to thousands.