In NC, Dorian May Trap Hundreds in Attics

Category 1 hurricane howls in the Outer Banks
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 6, 2019 1:45 PM CDT
Outer Banks Braces as Dorian Wallops
Beaufort Police Officer Curtis Resor, left, and Sgt. Micheal Stepehens check a sailboat for occupants in Beaufort, N.C. after Hurricane Dorian passed the North Carolina coast on Friday.   (AP Photo/Tom Copeland)

A weakened Hurricane Dorian flooded homes on North Carolina's Outer Banks on Friday with a ferocity that took even storm-hardened residents by surprise, forcing people to retreat to their attics. Hundreds were feared trapped by high water, per the AP.

  • On Ocracoke: Sheriff's officials sent medics and other rescuers to Ocracoke Island—accessible only by boat or air—to reach those who defied mandatory evacuation orders. Bookshop owner Leslie Lanier said via text message that the first floors of some homes had flooded and people had been forced to climb to their attics, but that the water had begun to drop.
  • Category 1: Dorian, its winds down to 90mph, howled over the Outer Banks as a far weaker storm than the brute that wreaked havoc on the Bahamas at the start of the week. But the Category 1 hurricane lashed communities with rain and surging seas, sending water coursing into the main floors of elevated homes.
  • Landfall: Around midmorning, the eye of the storm came ashore at Cape Hatteras, Dorian's first landfall on the continental US.
  • What's next: Dorian is expected to remain a hurricane as it sweeps up the Eastern Seaboard through Saturday, veering far enough offshore that its hurricane-force winds are unlikely to pose any threat to land in the US.
(The death toll in the Bahamas could be "staggering.")

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