East Coast braces for Hurricane Isabel

MOREHEAD CITY, N.C. – Traffic streamed inland from the vulnerable Outer Banks on Wednesday as residents and visitors alike headed for higher ground ahead of approaching Hurricane Isabel. Thousands more were ordered to evacuate in Virginia.

Isabel was a strong Category 2 storm Wednesday, with sustained wind near 110 mph, weakened from the weekend when it had 160 mph wind and held the top Category 5 rating on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

Forecasters predicted little change in strength before landfall for Isabel, the biggest storm to hit the region since Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

“Right now, the forecast calls for it to maintain the intensity it’s at currently,” meteorologist Bill Read said at the National Hurricane Center.

A 7- to 11-foot storm surge was expected near the area where the center strikes the coast, the hurricane center said. A surge of up to 7 feet was likely inside southern Chesapeake Bay, forecasters said.

About 100,000 people along the North Carolina coast had been urged to evacuate before the storm hits land sometime Thursday morning along the Outer Banks, where rough surf already was pounding the thin, 120-mile-long chain of islands.

“Even a lot of old salts are bailing out,” Brian Simmons said as he placed plywood across the window of Stoney’s Seafood in Avon. “I don’t know if it’s some vibe they feel or something.”

The evacuation had been steady and orderly but authorities said that was because many people were biding their time, waiting to see the latest forecasts before heading out.

About 180 miles up the coast, people were busy boarding up windows on Virginia’s Chincoteague Island.

“I love storms, and people are just freaking out,” said Carol Patton, manager of Don’s Seafood Restaurant at Chincoteague. “They’re panicking, saying we’re going to get it really bad. I’ve never seen the town boarded up like it is today.”

Others were less concerned.

With Isabel weakened, Joe Hardison figured he would stay aboard his 35-foot houseboat on Bogue Sound at Morehead City, west of Cape Lookout, and ride it out as he did earlier storms over the years.

“If (the boat) breaks loose, it’s going to run aground somewhere. If it does, I’ll step off,” said the 59-year-old air conditioning man, who had stocked his vessel with 120 pounds of ice, 50 gallons of water and a half gallon of rum.

Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner on Wednesday authorized local mandatory evacuations of vulnerable low-lying areas. Virginia Beach and Poquoson officials did so immediately, affecting about 26,000 people in Virginia Beach and 2,000 in Poquoson.

Governors of North Carolina and Maryland also had declared states of emergency. Officials in Pennsylvania and Maryland were concerned about the possibility of flooding after a wet summer. “There’s just nowhere to put the water,” said Ed McDonough, a spokesman for the Maryland Emergency Management Agency.

In addition to the civilian evacuations, about 6,000 military personnel and their families on or near Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va., were ordered to leave. Colleges and universities in eastern Virginia, including the College of William &Mary, said they would close Wednesday and ordered their students to leave.

At 8 a.m. EDT, Isabel was about 425 miles south-southeast of North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras, moving north-northwest at around 9 mph.

A hurricane warning was in effect from Cape Fear in southern North Carolina northward to the Virginia-Maryland state line, including most of Chesapeake Bay. Tropical storm watches extended northward to Sandy Hook, N.J., and southward along the South Carolina coast.

“People still need to understand this is a very formidable hurricane,” said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami. “Its track has been very consistent.”

Mayfield noted that Floyd was only a Category 2 storm but it caused up to $4.6 billion in damage and 56 deaths in the United States.

Navy ships manned by 16,400 sailors headed out to sea from Norfolk, Va., and Earle, N.J., to ride out the storm and keep from being battered against their piers. Military aircraft were flown to airfields inland.

Seventy-eight patients were evacuated from a nursing home at tiny Sealevel, N.C., which is literally at sea level on Core Sound north of Cape Lookout. Many of the patients at the Carteret General Hospital home are in early stages of Alzheimers, and the staff’s preparations included taking along movies that the residents are accustomed to watching.

“We’re just going on a little vacation,” nursing assistant Michelle Sanderling reassured 80-year-old Jane Condon as she was loaded onto an ambulance. “Everything’s going to be alright.”

EDITOR’S NOTE – Allen G. Breed is the AP’s Southeast regional writer, based in Raleigh, N.C.

On the Net:

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov