Millions of people on the US east coast prepared Friday for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, a massive storm authorities fear will cause widespread flooding and power outages across the populous region.
Officials from North Carolina to New York declared states of emergency and tens of thousands of people were ordered to higher ground as Irene, a category two hurricane on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale, raced toward the US mainland.
Irene is forecast to make landfall on Saturday at North Carolina and score a direct hit on New York City on Sunday with winds of up to 153 kilometers (93 miles) an hour.
Irene earlier tore through the Bahamas, a small country of 29 islands and hundreds of cays southeast of Florida, destroying home and uprooting trees. While there are no known casualties, local officials warned that assessments from the outlying regions were still coming in.
Earlier however The storm killed people in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
US state and federal authorities have been busy warning the 65 million people living in the path of the storm that they should expect heavy rain, flooding and possible power outages. “There’s hardly any excuse for people not to know that there’s a hurricane out there,” said Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, on Thursday.
“People need to understand that their time will be running out to be prepared and be ready,” he told reporters on a conference call.
