Ophelia Pounds Carolina Coast

(CBS/AP)  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.

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