“Hurricane Florence is the strongest storm to target the Carolinas and this part of our country in decades.”
Hurricane Florence is the strongest storm to target the Carolinas and Virginia region “in decades,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday in issuing dire warnings for the hundreds of thousands of people ordered to evacuate before the Category 4 storm makes landfall.
“We cannot stress the importance to our citizens that are in evacuations to heed the local and state warnings,” Jeffrey Byard, FEMA’s associate administrator for response and recovery, said at a news conference. “Hurricane Florence is the strongest storm to target the Carolinas and this part of our country in decades.”
Byard said that there was nothing currently projected to slow down or weaken the storm, and that FEMA expected “massive damage,” including power outages and infrastructure damage.
“This storm will and has the potential to cause loss of life, and we cannot emphasize the importance to take action now,” said Byard.
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 on Wednesday night, said FEMA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration liaison Steve Goldstein.
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.
Florence is expected to approach the coast of the Carolinas around Friday morning, according to NBC News meteorologist Bill Karins. The storm is expected to stall around Friday into Sunday, but still could potentially lead to both historic rainfall and severe inland flooding, Karins said.
Goldstein predicted potential rainfall totals of 15 to 20 inches.
