Hurricane Erin reached its closest approach to the U.S. East Coast and was beginning to move away from North Carolina on Aug. 21, but was stillunleashing powerful waves and rip currents, threatening beachfront homes and flooding roads as authorities urged people tostay out of the water. Erin, a large Category 2 hurricane, is expected to make a turn to the northeast and pick up speed as it pulls away from the coast later in the day. It should gradually weaken to a post-tropical cyclone by Aug. 23, but not before making an impact on most of the Atlantic coast all the way up to southeastern Canada, forecasters said. The National Hurricane Center has warned that roads the low-lying barrier islands will become impassable, with powerful waves of 15 to 20 feet crashing ashore. By the evening of Aug. 20, the North Carolina Department of Transportation closed a portion of Highway 12, a crucial artery in theOuter Banks, due to flooding. Major flooding was forecast at more than a half-dozen tidally influenced locations along the mid-Atlantic coast, including at Duck, North Carolina, around the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, and at Lewes, Delaware, as the storm surge from Erin flowed into communities. The National Weather Service said flooding at some of these locations would pose a "significant threat" to property and life, necessitating evacuations. On Chesapeake Bay at the Bay Bridge Tunnel, the tide is forecast to reach 6 feet high, which could cause extensive flooding presenting a threat to property and life, weather service records show. The severe flooding would extend inland, inundating waterfront and shoreline homes and businesses and requiring some areas to be evacuated.
