FEMA Urges East Coast to Prepare for Hurricane Earl

(Aug. 31) -- Evacuations may be necessary along the East Coast if Hurricane Earl comes too close to shore, federal officials said today.

"We do not have a forecasted landfall, but we do expect impacts along the coast," Federal Emergency Management Agency head Craig Fugate told reporters, as winds from the approaching storm churned up seas along the coastline from Florida to Massachusetts.

"Evacuations may be required if the storm doesn't turn," he said. "Today is the day to make sure you have your family disaster plans, that you check your supplies."

A hurricane watch was issued this afternoon for most of the North Carolina coast, as the Category 4 storm hurtles toward the U.S. coastline with winds of up to 135 mph, gaining strength in the open ocean after plowing through islands in the Caribbean.

Earl could make contact with the East Coast by Thursday. Forecasters do not expect a direct hit but warned that the fast-moving storm could graze states from North Carolina to Maine, creating dangerous winds and flooding and making for a very soggy Labor Day weekend.

By this afternoon, the hurricane was swirling just over 1,000 miles off the coast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and was expected to take a turn toward land later in the day, the National Weather Service said.

"Anybody living on the East Coast of the United States should really be paying attention to this storm," Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center, told The Wall Street Journal.

A NASA satellite snapped an image of Earl moving northward Sunday behind Hurricane Danielle, before striking Puerto Rico and islands in the Caribbean. Earl caused damage to power lines there but no fatalities or serious injuries, according to The Associated Press.

Danielle weakened into a tropical storm Monday but created dangerous rip currents along East Coast beaches over the weekend. One surfer in Florida drowned, and a swimmer in Maryland is still missing today after being swept away Saturday in the rough surf.

For now, Earl is moving west-northwest at 14 mph and looks set to largely spare the U.S. and instead peel off eastward into the Atlantic. However, forecasters cautioned that it was too soon to tell for sure and said the trajectory of the storm could change quickly.

"Any small shift in the track could dramatically alter whether it makes landfall or whether it remains over the open ocean," Wallace Hogsett, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center, told the AP.

Forecasters said that if the hurricane tracked farther to the west, Earl would most likely make landfall along the Outer Banks of North Carolina and then weaken before possibly hitting New York's Long Island or Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, a third storm, Tropical Storm Fiona, formed Monday in the Atlantic with winds of 40 mph but is so far not expected to pose a direct threat to the U.S. coastline. In fact, it may weaken in Earl's more powerful wake.

FEMA said it was ready to help states evacuate people in case of flooding from Hurricane Earl.

"We're talking to the states, if they're going to even have to start talking about evacuating, we have people designated to help them," Fugate told The Washington Post. "Teams from the West Coast are headed to New England to assist if necessary."