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Hurricane Florence is the strongest storm to target the Carolinas and Virginia region “in decades,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday while issuing dire warnings for the roughly one million people ordered to evacuate before the Category 4 storm makes landfall.
“Hurricane Florence is a very dangerous storm,” Jeffrey Byard, FEMA’s associate administrator for response and recovery, said at a news conference.
More than one million citizens from the Carolinas and Virginia were currently under mandatory evacuations he said.
“We cannot stress the importance to our citizens that are in evacuations to heed the local and state warnings,” he said, adding, “Hurricane Florence is the strongest storm to target the Carolinas and this part of our country in decades.”
“There is currently nothing that’s projected to slow the storm down, to weaken the storm,” he added. “We are planning for a hard impact of a Category 4 storm.
Byard said FEMA expected “massive damage,” includingpower outages, infrastructure damage and potential loss of life.
“This storm will and has the potential to cause loss of life and we cannot emphasize the importance to take action now,” said Byard.
Florence is expected to approach the coast of the Carolinas on Thursday, said FEMA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration liaison Steve Goldstein.
As of Tuesday morning, the storm was about 400 miles south of Bermuda and moving west-northwest at 15 mph. The first outer rain bands from Florence could move into the outer banks of the Carolinas and southeast Virginia Wednesday night, Goldstein said. Hurricane-force winds could extend inland into central North Carolina and central Virginia later in the day on Thursday and a large area of tropical storm-force winds were expected to last until Friday, he added.
The hurricane could also lead to a prolonged period of major to record flooding in the area from Florence’s rainfall into early next week, with rainfall totals potentially exceeding 15 to 20 inches.
The mayor of Washington, D.C., declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm Tuesday, joining governors of South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland. West Virginia has declared a state of preparedness.
North and South Carolina are anticipated to bear the brunt of Florence, which the National Hurricane Center said on Monday had grown to a Category 4. As of 8 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Florence was packing maximum sustained winds of near 130 mph.
Florence was expected to restrengthen later Tuesday and life-threatening storm surge was possible along the coast of the Carolinas, according to the hurricane center.
Hurricane and storm surge watches have been issued for the East Coast of the United States, from Edisto Beach, South Carolina, northward to the North Carolina-Virginia border, including the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds. The warnings mean there is a possibility of life-threatening inundation from rising water moving inland from the coastline and hurricane conditions.
Florence’s center will move over the southwestern Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Bahamas on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.