Hurricane Florence’s Path: Closing In on Carolina Coast

The first rains of Hurricane Florence have begun to lash North Carolina on Thursday, with the storm growing in size, packing sustained winds of up to 105 miles an hour and driving a storm surge that could reach 13 feet in places.

As rain and wind spread across the Outer Banks, officials warned of the storm’s potential to deliver catastrophic, life-threatening damage, including drenching some areas with up to 40 inches of rain. People who are still in mandatory evacuation zones have only a few hours left to get out safely, officials said Thursday morning.

Here are the latest developments:

• The center of the storm was about 145 miles southeast of Wilmington, N.C., at 11 a.m., with tropical-storm-force winds beginning to move onshore of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The National Hurricane Center said it was likely to maintain its intensity until the eye of the hurricane made landfall early Friday.

• The cloud coverage from the storm, an indication of its size, is as large as the Carolinas.

• The storm is forecast to crawl inland, drenching a wide area with extremely heavy rains — 20, 30 or even 40 inches of rainfall are predicted in some spots on the Carolina coast. Places as far inland as Charlotte, about 150 miles from the coast, could receive more than 10 inches of rain. Learn more about why slow-moving hurricanes are so dangerous here.

• Both the volume and the geographic extent of those rains are likely to be 50 percent greater than they otherwise would have been because of climate change, according to a team of climate scientists led by researchers at Stony Brook University.

• President Trump on Thursday falsely accused Democrats of inflating the death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year, rejecting a government assessment that the storm had claimed nearly 3,000 lives. Read more about the president’s comments.

• The major power supplier for North and South Carolina, Duke Energy, warned that Hurricane Florence could knock out power for up to three million customers across the two states. It could take several weeks to restore electricity to everyone, the company said.

• The authorities made last-ditch efforts to get everyone out of harm’s way. “My message today: Don’t relax, don’t get complacent, stay on guard,” Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina said Thursday. But some hurricane holdouts who have never fled a storm were determined to stay. Read why they’re staying put.

• North Carolina lawmakers are facing renewed criticism for a 2012 law that effectively ordered agencies to ignore an increasing rise in sea levels driven by climate change. The law helped allow rapid coastal development to continue. Read more about the controversy here.

• Mr. Trump also signaled on Twitter that he was tracking Florence’s progress, writing: “We are completely ready for hurricane Florence, as the storm gets even larger and more powerful. Be careful!” A look at how Florence is a formidable test for the president and FEMA.

• Florence has been a Category 4 storm, then a Category 3, and now a Category 2. Here’s our guide to how hurricanes are classified and why a change in category doesn’t tell the whole story.

• Are you in the path of Hurricane Florence? We want to hear from you.

FEMA prepares, but urges patience

Brock Long, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Thursday that the federal government had staged resources and personnel in states along the Eastern Seaboard to help quickly after the storm.

FEMA personnel were focused at the moment on helping state and local authorities prepare, he said. But as the storm pushes through, the agency will shift its focus to identifying infrastructure damage and work to restore services.

“The infrastructure is going to break. The power is going to go out,” Mr. Long said at a news conference. “We need people to get their mind-sets right that disasters are very frustrating and that it takes time to get the infrastructure back and running. We will move as quickly as we can to get back up.”

Though Florence has weakened to a Category 2 storm, Mr. Long said that storm surge and heavy rain still posed a significant danger. Residents still in their homes are running out of time to evacuate, he said.

“The ocean will start rising along the coast and back bay areas,” Mr. Long said. “Your time to get out of the areas, out of the storm surge areas, is coming to a close.”

Watch the storm live

A repurposed Coast Guard tower 34 miles off the coast southeast of Wilmington, N.C., is providing a unique, on-the-sea look at Florence. (Click on image to play.)

Another webcam further north on the North Carolina coast, is capturing the scene near the town of Pine Knoll shores. Still further north, along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, webcams are showing the conditions at Cape Hatteras and Kitty Hawk.

In South Carolina, webcams are capturing the coastline at Myrtle Beach and Kiawah Island.

There are other ways to follow the storm and its effects. Google has published a crisis map that showed traffic problems, evacuation zones and other alerts along with the cloud cover and the storm’s location.

CrowdSource Rescue, an organization that helped civilians rescue each other during Hurricane Harvey using mapping and other technology, also planned to publish rescue information on a map.

Wind gusts are only the beginning

Our reporter Jack Healy is on the Outer Banks, where winds from Hurricane Florence gained force on Thursday, gusting to 51 miles an hour and giving these emptied-out islands a preview of the storm’s power.

The gusts were a precursor to what would be coming; Hurricane Florence is expected to pummel the coast with winds above 100 m.p.h.

“It’s just starting to make its approach,” Drew Pearson, director of Emergency Management for Dare County n the Outer Banks, said. “You’re just starting to see the leading edge of the storm.” Read more about what it’s like to be on the Outer Banks today.

Trying to roust the hurricane holdouts

Federal, state and local officials, who have already spent days trying to warn people in Florence’s path of the potential severity of the storm, issued some of their most strident pleas yet on Wednesday for people to get out of harm’s way.

“We cannot underestimate this storm,” Governor Cooper of North Carolina said. “Wind speeds may have dropped some from yesterday, but we traded that for a larger wind field that expands 200 miles with tropical-storm-force winds.”

He pleaded with people to move to a safe place and listen to their local authorities if they are asked to move again to safer ground.

[Here’s how to prepare to evacuate your home ahead of Hurricane Florence.]

North Carolina had opened 108 shelters, which currently house more than 7,000 people, and is trying to open more.

South Carolina officials said Thursday that about 3,900 people had moved into shelters with three shelters completely occupied. The state still has space for more than 31,000 people across 60 shelters.

[Read more here about the hurricane holdouts who choose to ride out the storm at home]

A Charleston fixture decides to leave

The former mayor of Charleston, S.C., Joseph P. Riley Jr., who served 10 terms from 1975 to 2016, decided to set a good example for his former constituents by leaving town with his wife, Charlotte.

Many of their neighbors had chosen to stay put, he said, figuring they could tough out a few feet of storm surge. But Mr. Riley, 75, said Wednesday that he and his wife had decided to roll up some of the rugs, put them on the second floor, and get out. There were just too many possibilities that worried him.

“Our children are grown, and they’re squared away,” Mr. Riley said. “And then we have my sister-in-law who lives in Camden. She’s always happy to see us, and it’s nice to visit.”

The current mayor of Charleston, John Tecklenburg, echoed those thoughts, urging people to avoid the heavy rain, wind and flooding over the next few days. “It’s going to be a lousy weekend here,” he said, “and it’s going to be a good weekend to be somewhere else.”

Power concerns ahead of the storm

Duke Energy estimated that up to three million could lose power, based on modeling from previous storms as well as Florence’s projected path. That number would be about 75 percent of the company’s more than four million customers in North and South Carolina.

“People could be without power for a very long time,” said David Fountain, president of Duke Energy North Carolina.

[Landfall, storm surge and the Waffle House Index: Hurricane terms and what they mean.]

The company said that about 20,000 workers were ready to respond after the storm, including 1,700 additional Duke workers from the Midwest, 1,200 from Florida and 9,400 workers from other utilities as far away as Texas.

The company said it was also monitoring its Brunswick nuclear plant near Wilmington, N.C., which could face hurricane-force wind, significant storm surge and rain. At Brunswick and several other plants, workers were securing loose debris and inspecting equipment in anticipation of Florence’s arrival.

A Super Typhoon threatens the Philippines

As the East Coast of the United States awaits Hurricane Florence, the Philippines is staring at a super typhoon packing winds of up to 150 miles an hour. Super Typhoon Mangkhut is on track to hit the northern Philippines with its strongest winds on Friday before striking Taiwan and then possibly veering south toward Hong Kong and mainland China.

As many as 43 million people could be exposed to cyclone-strength winds, according to the Global Disaster Alert and Coordination System. The typhoon’s winds are expected to intensify Thursday and Friday — reaching speeds as high as 161 m.p.h. — before weakening Saturday, the Hong Kong Observatory said.

In 2013, the Philippines was battered by Super Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people and displaced hundreds of thousands. Read more here.

Using social media for warnings, and some relief

Through webcams, many people on social media were already watching the storm’s initial winds and rains whipping the coastline.

The U.S. Army and Coast Guard said they were gearing up to respond the storm and the expected flooding from extensive rainfall and storm surge. Local transit agencies said they would help get people to the safety of shelters. Utility workers from across the country prepared for extensive damage in the storm region that could cut electric service to millions of customers.

Breweries said they would help people fill up water containers. Amusement park operators removed gondolas from a Ferris wheel. People picked up foster animals to make room for people in shelters. One bakery in a North Carolina town baked hurricane-themed bread.

But, as always, many people offered cautions not to believe everything that you see on social media.

Some answers to your hurricane questions

As Hurricane Florence approaches, many readers have asked questions about the science of forecasting hurricanes, and how climate change affects them. In her responses, climate reporter Kendra Pierre-Louis explains why forecasters cannot precisely predict the path of the storm. (It is after all, an educated guess.)

She also reports that at least 20 computer forecasting models are available, but that only five of them are considered accurate by most meteorologists. (The American model is doing slightly better.) And discusses how climate change is affecting the intensity of the storms. (Think of warm water as the engine that fuels hurricanes.) Read more here.

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