Irene lashed the Bahamas yesterday with winds of 185 kilometres an hour, picking up power as it barrelled along a path that threatens the populous US east coast.
Gaining strength over warm seas, the first hurricane of the Atlantic storm season was expected to grow in intensity to a category four storm with winds up to 217 kilometres per hour over the central Bahamas, forecasters said.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Centre declared Irene a major category three hurricane on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale shortly before it reached the southeastern end of the Bahama islands.
“Eye moving over Crooked and Acklins Islands,” the centre reported at 1500 GMT, placing it 165 kilometres southeast of Long Island, Bahamas.
A US Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter plane that flew into the heart of the storm clocked winds at a sustained 185 kilometres per hour with higher gusts.
“My husband already started getting the shutters together, and we’re also packing to get out,” said Edna Smith, whose house in Holmes Rock, Grand Bahama, was flooded in the last hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. “We’re not staying there. We’re probably going to a shelter.”
Deborah Rolle loaded groceries in the back of her car in Freeport after making last-minute purchases.
“I’m trying to get a jump-start on things, getting everything prepared before the actual storm hits,” she said.
The hurricane was projected to churn up along the US east coast, with possible landfall in the Carolinas by Saturday. But if it stays over water it may slam New York’s Long Island and parts of New England.
Bill Read, director of NHC, said the track remains uncertain but that “the exact centre of the storm may stay close to the coast on Saturday and perhaps become a big threat to New England and Long Island.”
He said the storm had become “very well organised overnight” and was growing in size.
“It is in the warmest water and a favourable environment, so it could actually get stronger,” he told reporters in a conference call.
Authorities began evacuating tourists from North Carolina’s popular Outer Banks beach resort early on Wednesday and have ordered a mandatory evacuation of the Ocracoke and Hatteras barrier islands.
Craig Fugate, the head of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, said emergency personnel were preparing for impact from the Carolinas to New England.
“This is going to be a big storm. Just because it hits one area doesn’t mean it’s not going to cause damage further up the coast,” he said.
Irene is currently forecast to move across the southeastern and central Bahamas, and over the northwestern Bahamas today or tomorrow. Up to 25 centimetres of rainfall were expected in the southeastern Bahamas.
The hurricane centre warned of “an extremely dangerous storm surge (that) will raise water levels by as much as seven to 11 feet (2.1 to 3.4 metres) above normal tide levels over the central and northwestern Bahamas.”
In the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos, water levels were expected to rise by as much as five to eight feet (1.5 to 2.4 metres) over normal tide levels, it said.
Airports and businesses closed on Wednesday in the Turks and Caicos, where officials said high winds felled power lines and spread debris in city streets.
The US State Department issued a travel warning for the islands as well as the Bahamas, urging US citizens already to seek shelter.
In the Dominican Republic, authorities said more than 11,000 people were evacuated to shelters before the storm winds brushed the island’s north coast late on Monday.