Ophelia Pounds Carolina Coast

The eyewall of Hurricane Ophelia sat over the Outer Banks of North Carolina early Thursday, with 85 mph winds extending 40 miles from the center of the storm, and tropical force winds felt as far as 140 miles away.

Ophelia's very slow progress up the coast, northeast at about 6 mph, carries with it a risk of serious flooding and a storm surge of 5 to 7 feet along the cost and 9 to 11 feet at the heads of bays and rivers.

"If you have not heeded the warning before, let me be clear right now: Ophelia is a dangerous storm," Gov. Mike Easley said from Raleigh Wednesday, as high winds and torrential rain began to pound the coastal areas in the Carolinas, much of which was subject to mandatory or voluntary evacuation orders.

So far over 120,000 homes and business are without power in eastern North Carolina.

President Bush issued an emergency declaration for 37 counties in eastern North Carolina, authorizing the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

It's a category one hurricane and is expected to remain at that strength over the next 24 hours, dumping as much as 15 inches of rain in some areas. Wilmington and Morehead City, both in North Carolina, are the cities the National Hurricane Center considers most at risk of a strike by Ophelia.

Gov. Easley urged residents not to take chances.

"We have a concern that people in flood-prone areas need to get out," Easley said at a news conference. "We're asking and begging them to do that because it's going to be hard to get them out later."

The storm's slow, meandering path to the coast gave FEMA more time to get staff on the ground than is usually the case with North Carolina hurricanes, said Shelley Boone, the agency's team leader for Ophelia.

Easley said he had spoken to Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and that National Guard teams are prepared to evacuate sick, frail and elderly residents.

Ophelia is moving so slowly that authorities expect the storm's passage through North Carolina to take a full 48 hours from Tuesday, when the storm's rain reached the southeastern coast, up through late Thursday, when forecasters think it might head back out to sea.

FEMA had 250 workers on the ground as the first post-Katrina hurricane approached landfall - a larger-than-usual contingent given Ophelia's size. FEMA also put a military officer, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Brian Peterman, in place to command any federal response the storm may require.

Hurricane warnings cover the entire North Carolina coast from the South Carolina line to Virginia, where a tropical storm warning covered the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

The storm's eye - now about 65 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras - is expected to brush the coast early Thursday, according to Bob Frederick, meteorologist at the weather service bureau at Newport, N.C.

"It might just graze the coast. It might not be considered an official landfall," Frederick said.

According to the National Hurricane Center, the center of Ophelia might not come ashore in North Carolina, although it is likely to hug and parallel the barrier islands of the Outer Banks through Thursday.

Water pushed out of Bogue Sound washed into garages and ground floors while ocean surf chewed away the end of a hotel's pier on Bogue Banks, a barrier island.

By mid-afternoon Wednesday, a storm total of about 12 inches had fallen on Oak Island at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, said meteorologist Jeff Orrock with the National Weather Service in Raleigh.

On Ocean Isle Beach, south of Carolina Beach, a 50-foot section of beachfront road was washed out by heavy surf and the only bridge to the island was closed.

In coastal Craven County, Jetnella Gibbs of Beaufort and her family made their way to a shelter at Havelock High School following heavy rains Tuesday.

"We noticed the street was starting to fill up, and I said, 'It's time to go,"' she said. "I know if this little bit here has flooded the street, what will it do when it really pours?"

Officials on the Outer Banks warned Ophelia could bring 10 hours of hurricane-force wind to exposed Hatteras Island starting late Wednesday. The southernmost villages of Hatteras, Frisco and Buxton were expected to get the worse of the winds and the flooding.

"It's an island - the water will come over, it'll go out - and we'll do it all over again," said Tiffany Bigham, after she'd finished boarding up the windows to her living room in Buxton on Hatteras Island. Born and raised on Hatteras, Bigham plans to ride out the storm inside her house along with family and friends.

"You grow up knowing it's a part of life" she said.

Ophelia is the 15th named storm and seventh named hurricane of this year's busy Atlantic season, which ends Nov. 30.