Emerald Isle North Carolina is bracing, along with other coastal communities, for the wrath of Hurricane Earl which may make landfall as early as midnight, tonight. The tourists have been shooed to safety, the boats tied down, the windows covered and the deck furniture stowed in the shed. Teams of rescuers, National Guardsmen and electrical repairmen are standing by. Pallets of water, food and power generators have been stashed.Collectively, coastal North Carolina seems to have fresh batteries in its flashlight as it waits for Hurricane Earl to do its worst. That's likely to happen overnight tonight."It's been a long couple of days, to be honest with you," said Tommy Hutcherson, who remained on Ocracoke Island on Wednesday to run the Variety Store despite a mandatory evacuation order. "It'll be nice when we get hunkered down and go ahead and see what's going to happen, and get it over with."Surf was already kicking up Wednesday night, a precursor of the storm, which was upgraded to Category 4 with winds of 135 mph early last night. Because of rip currents, beaches were closed to swimming.This morning, clouds are expected to move in over the coastal counties. By midday, the first bands of rain will begin to reach the coast, according to Barrett Smith, a National Weather Service meteorologist at Raleigh-Durham International Airport. Through the night, Earl is expected to cruise past, 80 to 120 miles offshore -- close enough to whip the Outer Banks with 70- to 80-mph winds and send a 1-foot to 2-foot storm surge along the oceanfront. The worst risk of overwash on the Outer Banks will be at high tide, about 3 a.m.Rainfall could be as much as 2 to 4 inches in places.If the storm turns slightly west, with the eye coming closer to or even hitting land, conditions could get markedly worse.The Triangle won't see as much as a sprinkle from the storm, according to forecasts. The weather in the Triangle is expected to be partly cloudy and warm.It was beautiful at the beaches Wednesday, even as Gov. Bev Perdue declared a state of emergency ahead of Earl's arrival. Her executive order also authorized Reuben Young, head of the Department of Crime Control and Public Safety, to take whatever actions are necessary to protect public safety.A state of emergency declaration is the first step in seeking federal funds to pay for cleanup, utility restoration and other services after a disaster. The governor of Virginia has declared an emergency as well.Evacuations moved thousands of people out of harm's way. Residents and visitors were told to leave Ocracoke Island, and all visitors were sent off Hatteras Island. Ocracoke is accessible only by ferry, and the two-lane highway off of Hatteras is notorious for flooding or even breaking apart when the ocean crashes over the dunes during big storms.Carteret preparesCarteret County has ordered a mandatory evacuation for visitors and residents of the Bogue Banks area, which includes the communities of Atlantic Beach, Pine Knoll Shores, Indian Beach and Emerald Isle, effective at 5 a.m. today. The county has canceled school today and Friday.Carteret will open Newport Middle School as a shelter at noon today. Leon Mann Senior Center will operate as a special needs shelter.Katie Oden, who runs the Seagull Motel in Hatteras Village, said all her customers had left by midday Wednesday, and she was trying to decide whether to go herself."The people who live out here, about a third are staying, a third are leaving and a third don't know," Oden said.She was inclined to go, she said, because she has plans to travel with her sister to Portugal in a little over a week and doesn't want to take a chance on missing the trip if N.C. 12 off the island gets washed out by Earl."I packed my bags last night, just in case," she said. "But it's hard to decide. Once you leave, it's an ordeal to get back. But if you stay, and the road goes out, you have to stay for the duration."State emergency officials suggest that residents who evacuate register with the American Red Cross "Safe and Well" program to ensure that friends and family know their plans.The website is safeand well.communityos.org/cms/.Pitt County opened an emergency shelter Wednesday at North Pitt High School in Bethel for those who need a place to stay until the storm passes.FEMA is in motionCraig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said his organization has sent supplies of food, drinking water and generators to Fort Bragg ahead of the storm in case they are needed afterward. The American Red Cross said Wednesday it had 31 trucks on the way from Southeastern states equipped to feed people following a disaster. The Salvation Army was making similar preparations.Fayetteville Fire Chief Benny Nichols said his department is ready to help. He has an urban search and rescue team, swiftwater rescue crews and a hazardous-materials team that can be used if the storm doesn't turn away from land and causes heavy flooding."We are ready to assist our neighbors just in case things go bad on the coast," he said.By Friday evening, it should all be over. Forecasters say skies will clear and a cold front will bring more fall-like temperatures over the weekend.Behind Earl, Tropical Storm Fiona is expected to move through the Atlantic farther east. It is not expected to affect the N.C. coast.And a ninth tropical depression formed Wednesday morning. It could become a tropical storm, to be named Gaston, today, said Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center.Hutcherson, the storekeeper at Ocracoke, said he's dealing with one storm at a time.By Wednesday afternoon, most of what he was selling was batteries and beer.
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