Hurricane Ophelia lashed the North Carolina coast with high winds and heavy rains, beginning an anticipated two-day assault that threatened serious flooding and a 3.3m storm surge.
"If you have not heeded the warning before, let me be clear right now: Ophelia is a dangerous storm," Governor Mike Easley said from Raleigh, appealing especially to those in flood-prone areas to evacuate.
Ophelia was moving so slowly -- just 11 kph on Wednesday night -- that authorities expected the storm's passage through North Carolina to take 48 hours from the start of rainfall on the southeastern coast on Tuesday afternoon to the storm's anticipated exit into the Atlantic late yesterday.
The storm had sustained winds of 137 kph, the National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane warnings covered the entire North Carolina coast from the South Carolina line to Virginia, where a tropical storm warning covered the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.
More than 30.5cm of rain had fallen on Oak Island at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, said meteorologist Jeff Orrock with the National Weather Service in Raleigh.
More than 120,000 homes and business were without power in eastern North Carolina, electric utilities said.
On Ocean Isle Beach, south of Carolina Beach, a 15m section of beachfront road was washed out by heavy surf and the only bridge to the island was closed.
Video broadcast by Durham's WTVD-TV from Carteret County on the central coast showed a section from the end of a hotel's fishing pier breaking off and floating away.
Jetnella Gibbs and her family made their way to a shelter at a Craven County high school after the rain started on Tuesday.
"We noticed the street was starting to fill up, and I said, `It's time to go,"' she said. "I know if this little bit here has flooded the street, what will it do when it really pours?"
The storm's eye was expected to brush the coast between midnight and 2am, but it might not come ashore, said Bob Frederick, meteorologist at the weather service bureau at Newport, North Carolina.
At 11pm on Wednesday, Ophelia's center was about 32km south-southeast of Cape Lookout and moving northeast at about 11kph toward Cape Hatteras, about 137km away.
Water that was pushed out of Bogue Sound washed into garages and ground floors while ocean surf chewed away the end of a hotel's pier on Bogue Banks, a barrier island.
Following the criticism of its response to Hurricane Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had 250 workers on the ground -- a larger-than-usual contingent given Ophelia's size. FEMA also put a military officer, Coast Guard Rear Admiral Brian Peterman, in place to command any federal response the storm might require.
The storm's slow, meandering path to the coast gave FEMA more time to get staff on the ground than is usually the case with North Carolina hurricanes, said Shelley Boone, the agency's team leader for Ophelia.
President George W. Bush issued an emergency declaration for 37 counties in eastern North Carolina, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to coordinate disaster relief efforts.
Easley said he had spoken to Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and that National Guard teams were prepared to evacuate sick, frail and elderly residents.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
FIRST STAGE: Hamas has agreed to release 48 Israeli hostages in exchange for 250 ‘national security prisoners’ as well as 1,700 Gazans, but has resisted calls to disarm Israel plans to destroy what remains of Hamas’ network of tunnels under Gaza, working with US approval after its hostages are freed, it said yesterday. Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said that the operation would be conducted under an “international mechanism” led by the US. “Israel’s great challenge after the hostage release phase will be the destruction of all Hamas terrorist tunnels in Gaza,” Katz said. “I have ordered the army to prepare to carry out this mission,” he added. Hamas operates a network of tunnels under Gaza, allowing its fighters to operate out of sight of Israeli reconnaissance. Some have passed under
RSS