Hurricane watches were in effect Wednesday along the North Carolina and Virginia coasts as Earl -- packing 125-mph winds -- prepared to trace its way up the East Coast.
The storm was still well east of the Bahamas, but tourists on a popular vacation island on North Carolina's Outer Banks were ordered to board ferries and head for the mainland Wednesday, and more evacuations are possible as Hurricane Earl threatens to sideswipe Atlantic Coast states.
Dare County officials on Wednesday morning ordered the evacuation of visitors on Hatteras Island just hours after Hyde County officials ordered tourists off neighboring Ocracoke Island. The first ferries began evacuating people to the mainland shortly after 6 a.m.
Although Earl has been downgraded slightly to a Category 3 storm, it remains an extremely powerful system with the potential to do significant damage, especially if it tracks west of current predictions. Most models have the center of the hurricane passing well offshore of the North Carolina coast, but it is still expected to pound the state's Outer Banks with high winds and heavy rains by late Thursday or early Friday.
The state emergency management officials' evacuation orders started with the 5,000 tourists on Ocracoke Island, which is only accessible by ferry. The 800 or so year-round residents are not required to heed the evacuation call, but Emergency Services Director Lindsey Mooney said officials hope they'll voluntarily follow the tourists.
New England also is within the hurricane's reach as it moves farther up the coast by Saturday. Officials in Massachusetts and Rhode Island were preparing for the storm, while in Connecticut authorities were discussing readiness. The National Weather Service predicted that Hurricane Earl would hit up to 100 miles south of Nantucket Island on Friday night.
NWS meteorologist Kevin Cadima said outer Cape Cod and Nantucket were currently forecast to face the brunt of the storm in New England.
"They have the potential to see hurricane-force winds out there. Rhode Island, with the current track, would be on the fringe, on the western fringe, of the tropical storm conditions," Cadima said.
Forecasters cautioned that it's still too early to tell how close Earl might come to land. But not since Hurricane Bob in 1991 has such a powerful storm had such a large swath of the East Coast in its sights, said Dennis Feltgen, spokesman for the National Hurricane Center.
"A slight shift of that track to the west is going to impact a great deal of real estate with potential hurricane-force winds," Feltgen said.
On Tuesday, gusty winds from Earl's outer fringes whipped palm fronds and whistled through doors in the Turks and Caicos Islands as tied-down boats seesawed on white-crested surf. Islanders gathered to watch big waves pound a Grand Turk shore as the wind sent sand and salt spray flying.
"We can hear the waves crashing against the reef really seriously," Kirk Graff, owner of Captain Kirk's Flamingo Cove Marina, said by telephone as he watched the darkening skies. "Anybody who hasn't secured their boats by now is going to regret it."
Carl Hanes of Newport News, Va., kept an eye on the weather report as he headed for the beach near his rented vacation home in Avon, N.C. He, his wife and their two teenage children anticipated that Earl might force them to leave Thursday, a day ahead of schedule.
"We're trying not to let it bother us," Hanes said before enjoying the calm surf.
In Rehoboth Beach, Del., Judy Rice said she has no plans to leave the vacation home where she has spent most of the summer. In fact, the Oak Hill, Va., resident plans to walk around town in the rain if it comes.
"I kind of enjoy it, actually. You know, it's battling the elements," Rice said. "I have seen the rain go sideways, and, yeah, it can be scary, but I have an old house here in Rehoboth, so it's probably more important that I am here during a storm than anywhere."
With reporting from NPR's Jon Hamilton and Phil Latzman of member station WLRN, and content from The Associated Press [Copyright 2010 National Public Radio]
