By Gene Cherry
HATTERAS ISLAND, North Carolina (Reuters) - Hurricane Earl took aim at North Carolina on Thursday and was on track to lash its barrier islands with dangerous winds and pounding surf before cutting a path up the U.S. East Coast.
The U.S. National Hurricane Centre said the massive Category 3 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity had top sustained winds of 125 mph (205 kph) after weakening slightly from its expected peak wind-strength early on Thursday.
At least 100,000 people were under evacuation orders from North Carolina's Outer Banks islands as Earl swirled over the Atlantic about 245 miles (395 km) south of Cape Hatteras at about 2 p.m. EDT (7 p.m. British time).
It was due to pass near the Outer Banks on Thursday night before turning gradually towards the north-northeast to sweep up the East Coast on Friday.
"We expect conditions along the east coast to deteriorate rapidly tonight and tomorrow," Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate told a conference call.
While a direct U.S. landfall was not forecast, Earl was due to deliver a stinging blow to the North Carolina coast and farther northwards before the Labour Day holiday weekend marking the end of the summer vacation season.
"This is a large system, with impacts well away from the centre," said Fugate. He called Earl "a very dangerous storm."
Fugate and National Hurricane Centre director Bill Read stressed that hurricane-force winds from Earl extended out 90 miles (145 km) from its core, so it would not take a direct landfall to inflict damage from both wind and high seas.
North Carolina's picturesque barrier islands jut out into the Atlantic and are frequently smacked by hurricanes and storms. Cobb said Earl was one of the biggest storms to menace the state since Hurricane Floyd killed more than 50 people in North Carolina in 1999.
On Ocracoke Island, charter boat captain Ryan O'Neal, 31, said he was staying put with his dog despite an evacuation order. He spoke as the last ferry off the island, accessible only by boat, left on Thursday morning.
"I've been here for every hurricane since I was born. This one may be bad, but I'm sure we've had worse. I've got to watch out for my house and boat," O'Neal said.
"The trees are starting to shake a little from the wind. I was out on the beach and even though it's low tide, the waves have been coming up to the dunes," he added.
Watches and warnings were posted along the Atlantic coast for most of North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, part of Massachusetts and Nova Scotia, alerting residents that hurricane and tropical storm conditions were possible within the next day or so.
David Rauch, check-in office manager at a 146-unit timeshare resort near Kitty Hawk in North Carolina, said the establishment was nearly full on Thursday morning when employees started notifying residents of an evacuation order.
"We've never had a bad hurricane in all the years I've been here. But the fact is that this one is the closest I've seen to having that opportunity to very easily wobble over to the west and hit us real good," said Rauch.
"DAY OF ACTION"
Though forecasters said the centre of Earl was expected to keep off the U.S. Coast, they warned it would be very near southeastern New England on Friday night.
"Nantucket, the (Martha's) Vineyard and the eastern half of the Cape (Cod) will experience hurricane-force winds," Read said.
Fugate urged residents along the U.S. East Coast from North Carolina northwards to remain alert and to heed evacuation orders if they come. "This is a day of action. People need to be rapidly completing their preparedness now," Fugate said.
"Don't wait for the forecast every six hours and think it's going to get better."
No storm has threatened such a broad swath of the U.S. shoreline -- the densely populated coast from North Carolina to New England -- since Hurricane Bob in 1991.
Oil refiners and nuclear power plants along the U.S. East Coast were still monitoring Earl on Thursday, and taking some solace from predictions it was expected to start weakening slowly on Friday.
Earl could affect 1.1 million barrels per day of U.S. operable refinery capacity, or 7 percent of total U.S. reining capacity, located in areas likely to be affected by the hurricane, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.
Behind Earl, Tropical Storm Gaston, the seventh named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, was churning west in the central Atlantic on a path that could take it into the Caribbean Sea.
Gaston weakened to a tropical depression but restrengthening was expected and it was forecast to become a hurricane by Sunday or Monday.
Most early computer models show the system tracking in a westerly direction into the Caribbean, but it was too early to tell whether Gaston would enter the energy-rich Gulf of Mexico.
(Additional reporting by Tom Brown and Pascal Fletcher in Miami, and Joe Silha in New York; Writing by Tom Brown; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Doina Chiacu)
