[/caption]Late night yesterday authorities ordered the mandatory evacuation of Ocracoke Island.
Ocracoke is located on the Outer Banks of North Carolina and has a resident population of about 800 people. In addition there are about 5,000 tourists on the small island.
Ocracoke can be accessed via ferry and it also has a small airport. The evacuation is being done via ferry for most of the visitors.
Hurricane Earl is expected to arrive at the Outer Banks area by late Thursday, which puts a little time pressure on the evacuation. There is only a limited number of ferries available.
The evacuation order is in effect since 5:00 AM this morning. Hurricane Earl was downgraded to a Category 3 hurricane. The storm is currently moving toward the northwest and is expected to turn north on Thursday.
While downgraded to Category 3, Earl is still a huge Hurricane with wind speeds of 125 mph and higher gusts. Once the Hurrican reaches land, it can cause dangerous storm surges which will raise the water levels 3 to 5 feet above ground level within the Hurrican warning area. The surge will be accompanies by large and destructive waves. Currently the storm surge probability in North Carolina is about 20%.
On the next page you can see the projected path of Hurricane Earl.
Hurricane Earl Projected Path
[caption id="attachment_7882" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Hurricane Earl Projected Path"]
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