mandatory evacs ordered for dare county

[WXBUFFJIM]

Residents of Dare County are being told to leave their homes beginning at noon today. The mandatory evacuation order ensure that folks in the Cape Hatteras have until 12 noon to prepare for Isabel, then leave immediately after that!!

Tropical storm force winds should begin impacting the Hatteras area late Wednesday night into early Thursday morning. Then hurricane force winds will follow. With Hatters projected to be in the northeast quadrant of the hurricane, ocean overwash is likely in the ocean side of Hatteras!!! Thus mandatory evacuations are neccessary in this area!! Most people living on the outer banks should leave anyway because that's not the place to be in major hurricanes!!!! We're talking about just barrier islands here!!

As for the weakening of Isabel, don't let this fool you peoples. It could easily come right back. We need to stay prepared just in case. This is a life and death situation peoples. No preparation is much like saying we're losing lives. We have 60 hours to go over warm water before the hurricane hits the cooler coastal zones and makes landfall. lots can happen in 60 hours and restrengthening is a possibility. It won't be a cat 4-5 hurricane. But folks cat 2-3 hurricanes can STILL do SERIOUS DAMAGE!!! If you're writing this off already, someone has a problem. Get over it already and keep an eye on this!!!

Jim

[tomboudreau]

Well said Jim...This storm might not be the monster it was on Sunday afternoon, but it still can beat the living snot out of people. This storm should not be taken lightly at all. If your told to leave, then leave. As for our local concerns in West-Central PA...NWS State College is calling for 3 to 5 inches of rain on the western counties (I am right next to their far western counties) and both Pittsburgh and State College offices have/are going to be putting out statements on possible flooding from this system.

[JCT777]

Good advice Jim. We all should watch this carefully, as there still is a potential for Isabel to regain some strength in the next day or two. Although I agree she will not go beyond Category 3 strength prior to landfall.

[JetMaxx]

The nightmare scenario for disaster management officials is a hurricane like this one....a powerful hurricane that suddenly weakens; and many coastal residents "give up" on it...say "it's dying, I'm not evacuating for a cat-1 or 2" -- then having it explosively deepen as hurricane Opal did in 1995 (fortunately Opal weakened just as rapidly in the final 6-8 hours before landfall....narrowly averting a catastrophe).

We were very lucky with Opal...someday, along some portion of the U.S. coastline we won't be :o