JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — A weakened but still dangerous Hurricane Dorian bombarded North Carolina with pounding winds and drenching rain on Friday, causing severe storm surges and flooding in the Outer Banks.
After devastating the Bahamas and strafing parts of the southeastern United States this week, Dorian made landfall Friday morning in North Carolina when its eye scraped across Cape Hatteras. The storm knocked out power, blocked roads and transformed streets into rivers.
By the early afternoon, the storm’s core was 90 miles northeast of Cape Hatteras and had left the Outer Banks. The National Hurricane Center said Dorian’s center will keep moving away from the state’s coast on Friday, but forecasters warned that the situation would remain perilous.
“Life-threatening storm surge and dangerous winds will continue along portions of the North Carolina coast, portions of southeast Virginia and the southern Chesapeake Bay for the next several hours,” the National Hurricane Center said late Friday morning.
[Dorian slams into the Outer Banks with wind, storm surge flooding]
Early reports suggest that hundreds of people are trapped on Outer Banks without power and amid rapidly rising waters, according to the state’s director of emergency management Mike Sprayberry.
Videos from the area showed water that stretched up trees and swamped roadways. The storm drove a seven-foot surge into the Outer Banks, south of Nags Head. A gauge on idyllic Hatteras Island recorded inundation that topped five feet, more than enough to be considered major flooding.
Dorian delivered a marathon assault on the Bahamas before slowly rumbling north, tracking a path that ran essentially parallel to the United States coastline while keeping its eye just offshore. Even with that, the storm still rattled eastern parts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina on its way north before crossing over the Tar Heel State.
Emergency officials urged area residents to get to the highest points in their houses. With the bridges to the islands impassable, first responders will likely need to use helicopters to transport food and supplies to hard-hit communities and to get victims of the hurricane out.
Still, the damage in most of the state was “not as bad as feared,” Gov. Roy Cooper (D) said in a news briefing Friday morning.
[In the Bahamas, waiting for relief amid the bodies]
No deaths have been reported, though Cooper has attributed the death of a man who fell preparing for Dorian’s arrival to the storm. As of Friday morning, 75 roads were closed as the storm lashed the coastline — compared with the 750 road closures reported at the same time during Hurricane Florence last year.
Communities in the southeastern part of the state, many of which are still recovering from severe flooding during that storm, breathed a sigh of relief, even as Dorian’s onslaught continued.
“We have to remember,” Cooper cautioned Friday. “This storm is still raging.”
More than 200,000 North Carolina residents were without power Friday morning, and some 4,500 people had sought refuge from the storm in shelters. Cooper urged those who had evacuated to hold off rushing back to their homes; downed power lines and potential flash floods remain deadly threats.
Authorities said that on Ocracoke Island, historic water levels were reported. Emergency personnel outside the island could not immediately reach Ocracoke, where the water was five to six feet above ground, Hyde County spokeswoman Donnie Shumate said Friday morning.
What flooded Ocracoke was an abrupt surge coming from Pamlico Sound, according to The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang.
Transportation officials said that with all of Ocracoke Island experiencing severe flooding, they had closed North Carolina Highway 12, which runs through the Outer Banks. Power outages were also reported to affect all of Hatteras and Ocracoke islands.
On Ocracoke, hundreds of people who remained on the island are trying to get to higher ground after a sudden, massive storm surge roared through the tiny village.
“We have an absolute major disaster,” Peter Vankevich, who runs the Ocracoke Observer, the island’s main news source. “It’s unbelievable. I cannot overemphasize the impact here. I hear up in Hatteras things are actually worse.”
Vankevich said waters from Pamlico Sound came rushing into the village of roughly 600 year-round residents around 7:30 a.m. on Friday.
“This storm surge came in amazingly quick,” he said.
Vankevich said people throughout the village are reporting similar conditions. He expects almost everyone on the island has lost their cars and said that several homes, including his, were damaged by falling trees.
Ocracoke Island is the southernmost inhabited island of the Outer Banks and most of it is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The village is a cluster of homes and shops along Silver Lake, a protective harbor at its southern tip.
Some other areas felt they had been spared the worst of Dorian’s wrath. In Onslow County, further inland in eastern North Carolina, Emergency Services Director Norman Bryson said Friday morning that the Dorian left “minimal damage” and that officials received far fewer emergency calls overnight than on a normal weeknight.
A swiftwater rescue team that mobilized overnight to save people from dangerous floodwaters during Hurricane Florence stayed put as hurricane force winds struck the county early Friday morning.
[As North Carolina focuses on getting ahead of hurricanes, some residents are hesitant to move]
When they drove around in trucks to survey flood-prone areas, all they found were a few knocked-over trees, some standing water in grass, and a bent mailbox. One sedan was submerged in the shoulder of a road with foot-deep water, but the occupants apparently escaped unscathed.
“This is light compared to some of the damage I’ve seen, this ain’t nothing,” said Thomas Goff of Onslow Fire and Rescue. “I’ve seen pop-up thunderstorms do more damage.”
Other areas that had watched Dorian’s path felt similarly spared. In southeast North Carolina, where Dorian passed overnight, minimal damage was initially reported. A spokeswoman for New Hanover County, which includes Wilmington, called the area relatively lucky, just with trees down and minor flooding, although crews are just going out to fully assess the area.
About 120,000 people lacked power in coastal North Carolina on Friday morning, according to Duke Energy, the main power provider, and thousands of crews fanned out to restore that.
Some rushed back when the storm had passed, and roadways reopened. As soon as the bridge to Carolina Beach and Kure Beach opened at 9 a.m., motorists flooded across the river to get to their homes, businesses and the ocean.
Makayla White, 25, was one of them, with her surfer husband and 7-month-old baby Mila. While dad joined the dozen surfers already on the waves, mother and daughter played in the sand.
“Dorian spared us,” White said. “[Hurricane] Florence was a lot worse.”
Richard Lang, 68, of Kure Beach came to the ocean to check out the waves after getting his morning coffee. Once a surfer himself, he said he quit “once I got old and decrepit.”
“We get 100-year storms about every other year now,” he observed. “I could just about predict what would happen with this one. When they start bouncing off Florida, we get them every time. That big hook of Cape Fear sticks out right there and catches them.”
Kaplan and Berman reported in Washington. Jason Samenow in Washington; Patricia Sullivan in Wilmington, N.C.; Kirk Ross in New Bern, N.C.; and Reis Thebault in Myrtle Beach, S.C., contributed to this report.
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