75,000 urged to flee hurricane in US

More than 75,000 people were urged to evacuate the coast of North Carolina today as Hurricane Isabel weakened but remained a dangerous storm on a track toward land.

The National Hurricane Centre posted a hurricane watch along much of the eastern coast from South Carolina to Virginia.

Forecasters said Isabel appeared to be on a course to hit the North Carolina coast on Thursday and move northward through eastern Virginia. Large swells and dangerous surf already were being felt along the coast.

The storm’s maximum sustained wind had decreased to about 105 mph today. More weakening was possible but the storm could strengthen again before landfall, the Hurricane Centre said in Miami.

At 4pm Irish time, Isabel was moving north north-west at around eight mph and was about 600 miles south-east of North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras, the hurricane centre reported.

Hurricane centre meteorologist Eric Blake said people should not let their guard down even though the storm was weakening.

“Hurricanes are notorious for gaining strength as they cross the Gulf Stream,” he said. Even at a Category 2, he added, “there’s still a lot of potential for danger.”

The latest evacuation order was for the low-lying Outer Banks islands, which includes an estimated 75,000 people. Dare County spokeswoman Dorothy Toolan said people would not be forced to leave.

“We do have some fire departments in municipalities that will visit neighbourhoods and encourage people, but we don’t have any kind of law enforcement knocking on doors, forcing people to leave,” Toolan said.

Ships from the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet started heading out to sea to escape from Isabel’s direct path. The Air Force had started flying planes from coastal bases to fields inland.

Moving the ships, manned by some 13,000 sailors, costs ”in the millions” but the expense would be far greater if the ships were battered in port, said Admiral Robert Natter, commander of the Norfolk-based Atlantic Fleet. “We cannot afford to have these very expensive, valuable national assets caught in port in a storm like this.”

Emergency officials in western Maryland and central and eastern Pennsylvania, where the ground already is saturated in places by a wet summer, had started planning for the possibility of high wind and heavy rain by Friday morning.

Virginia Governor Mark Warner had already declared a state of emergency, putting National Guardsmen, state police and transport crews on full alert.

Isabel is the first major hurricane to threaten the mid-Atlantic since Hurricane Floyd wreaked havoc on the East Coast in September 1999, causing 56 deaths.