SALVO, N.C., Saturday (Reuters) -Tropical Storm Hanna charged closer to the Carolinas early today, lashing the coast with heavy rains before striking land and running up the U.S. East Coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Hanna, which had killed at least 529 people while sweeping over Haiti, was expected to be just short of Category 1 hurricane strength when it strikes North Carolina and South Carolina before dawn on Saturday, the hurricane center said.
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| People stand in a flooded street on September 5, 2008 in Gonaives, 171 Km (72 miles) from Port-au-Prince after the passing of Tropical Storm Hanna. AFP |
Hurricane Ike, still an extremely dangerous Category 3 storm, churned in the open Atlantic toward south Florida and the oil fields of the Gulf of Mexico, the center said.
Authorities declared states of emergency, several North Carolina beach communities were under evacuation orders, campgrounds were shut and storm alerts were issued from Georgia to New Jersey, including for Washington, as the eighth tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season threatened the East Coast with flash flooding.
By 2 a.m. (0600 GMT), Hanna was 60 miles (95 km) southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina. It was racing north at 21 mph (34 kph) with top winds of 70 mph (115 kph).
Ike was far more threatening than Hanna because its top sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) threatened the Gulf Coast's 4,000 offshore platforms that produce a quarter of U.S. crude oil and 15 percent of the energy-hungry country's natural gas.
Ike had weakened from a Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale on Friday.
By 2 a.m. (0600 GMT), Ike was spinning 330 miles (530 km) east-northeast of Grand Turk Island and was expected to sweep westward near or over the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southern Bahamas by Sunday.
The Bahamian government sent soldiers and emergency supplies to Mayaguana and San Salvador, southern islands left short of food and water by an overdue mail boat. “If we have heavy flooding and lose power, we could be in an uncomfortable situation,” said chief councilor Earnel Brown of the island of Mayaguana.
Some further weakening was possible but the hurricane center said Ike was expected to remain a “major” storm of Category 3 or higher.
Visitors were ordered to evacuate the Keys on Saturday and residents were ordered out beginning on Sunday.
ORDERS TO LEAVE THE COAST
Some computer models took Ike near the heavily populated Miami area in southeast Florida, where up to 1.3 million people could be ordered to leave the coast. “It's a lot coming at us. But we must remain vigilant, focused and calm,” Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said.
A Category 4 hurricane strike on Miami would be a huge disaster because of the billions of dollars of vulnerable real estate in low-lying islands like Miami Beach and along the coast of the Florida peninsula.
Other computer models took Ike directly over Cuba, where Hurricane Gustav inflicted damage that former President Fidel Castro compared to the aftermath of a nuclear bomb.
Tropical Storm Josephine weakened into a tropical depression far out in the Atlantic, knocking out the weakest of three storms that followed Hurricane Gustav's rampage through the Caribbean to Louisiana.
Gustav came ashore on Monday west of New Orleans, largely sparing the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
The flurry underscored predictions for an unusually busy six-month hurricane season. An average season has 10 tropical storms, of which six strengthen into hurricanes with top sustained winds of at least 74 mph (119 kph). Josephine was already this year's 10th, and the statistical Sept. 10 peak of the storm season still lies ahead.
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