Weakening to a Category 1 storm on Friday, Hurricane Dorian was taking aim at North Carolina’s Outer Banks and spreading tropical storm conditions northward, report agencies.
At least four deaths in the Southeast were blamed on the storm.
At 5 a.m. Friday, Dorian was about 25 miles east of Cape Lookout, North Carolina with top sustained winds of 90 mph as it moves toward the northeast at 14 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Within hours, Dorian should push away from the US coast.
“On the forecast track, the center of Dorian will move near or over the coast of North Carolina during the next several hours. The center should move to the southeast of extreme southeastern New England tonight and Saturday morning, and then across Nova Scotia late Saturday or Saturday night,” Senior Hurricane Specialist John Cangialosi wrote in Friday’s advisory. On Ocracoke Island, near the southern end of the 200-mile-long string of barrier islands and spits, about 500 of the 1,000 residents have stuck around to face the storm, said Ann Warner, the owner of Howard’s Pub on the island. "The boats are tied down. Yards are cleaned up. Businesses are closed. People are hunkered down," Warner said by phone Thursday.
The ferries stopped service on Wednesday, she noted.
"It's too late to leave," Warner said. "If you want to change your mind, it's too late. We're on our own."
“I think we’re in for a great big mess,” said 61-year-old Leslie Lanier, who decided to stay behind and boarded up her home and bookstore on Ocracoke Island making sure to move the volumes 5 to 6 feet off the ground. Further north, Virginia was also in harm’s way, and a round of evacuations was ordered there.
After leaving more than 20 people dead when it slammed the Bahamas with 185 mph winds, Dorian swept past Florida at a relatively safe distance, grazed Georgia, and then hugged the South Carolina-North Carolina coastline. The extreme southern region of New England could be feeling stormy conditions by Friday night, forecasters said. As Dorian scoots toward Nova Scotia where it was expected by the weekend, the hurricane center said tropical-storm conditions could be upon a portion of Massachusetts within 36 hours. By Thursday night, a tropical storm warning had been issued in Massachusetts from Woods Hole to Sagamore.
Charleston, a historic port city of handsome antebellum homes, is on a peninsula that is prone to flooding even from ordinary storms. And it took an attack. Dorian toppled some 150 trees, swamped roads and brought down power lines, officials said, but the flooding and wind weren’t nearly as bad as feared. Several gusts of 75 to 80 mph were reported in Charleston Harbor early in the afternoon, as the storm’s eye moved just northeast of the city.