Hurricane Irene strengthened to a major Category 3 storm over the Bahamas on Wednesday with the East Coast in its sights.
Irene’s maximum sustained winds increased to near 115 mph with additional strengthening forecast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Federal officials have warned Irene could cause flooding, power outages or worse all along the East Coast as far north as Maine, even if it stays offshore. The projected path has gradually shifted to the east, though Irene is still expected to make landfall as a major hurricane in North Carolina sometime over the weekend. It is then expected to continue trudging northward.
Irene had already wrought destruction across the Caribbean, giving a glimpse of what the storm might bring to the Eastern Seaboard. In Puerto Rico, more than a million people were without power, and one woman died after trying to cross a swollen river in her car. At least hundreds were displaced by flooding in the Dominican Republic, forced to take refuge in schools and churches.
With the storm approaching, evacuations began on a tiny barrier island off North Carolina early Wednesday in what would be the first test of whether people in the crosshairs of what could be the first major storm in years along the East Coast will heed orders to get out of the way.
The first ferry to leave Ocracoke Island arrived in nearby Hatteras with around a dozen cars on board.
It won’t be easy to get thousands of people off the island, which is accessible only by boat. The 16-mile-long barrier island is home to about 800 year-round residents and a tourist population that swells into the thousands when vacationers rent rooms and cottages. Tourists were told to evacuate Wednesday. Island residents were told to get out on Thursday.
The state-run ferry service off the island, which began at 5 a.m., would be free during the evacuation, but no reservations were allowed. Boats can carry no more than 50 vehicles at a time.
