Washington, Sep 12: With a Category 4 Powerful Hurricane Florence headed towards the US East Coast on Tuesday prompting authorities to order more than a million people to evacuate the path of the extremely dangerous storm.
The National Weather Service said Hurricane Florence will bring life-threatening storm surge and rainfall to parts of the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic states. Cameras outside the International Space Station captured dramatic views of rapidly strengthening Hurricane Florence at 8:10 a.m. EDT Sept. 10 as it moved in a westerly direction across the Atlantic, headed for a likely landfall along the eastern seaboard of the U.S. late Thursday or early Friday. Now a major hurricane with winds of 115 miles an hour and increasing, the National Hurricane Center says Florence's forecast track will take the system over the southwestern Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Bahamas Tuesday and Wednesday, and Florence will approach the coast of South Carolina or North Carolina on Thursday. The station was flying 255 miles over the storm at the time this video was captured. Far from this hurricane parade on the other side of the globe, Tropical Storm Olivia is flying solo east of Hawaii. A Category 4 hurricane at its strongest, Olivia spent about a week swishing around in the Pacific Ocean without making landfall before it weakened into a tropical storm. One year after major storms ravaged the Gulf Coast and Puerto Rico, officials warned those in Florence's path not to underestimate the threat the storm poses. Florence is the most dangerous of three tropical systems in the Atlantic. Tropical Storm Isaac was east of the Lesser Antilles and expected to pass south of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, while Hurricane Helene was moving northward away from land. Forecasters also were tracking two other disturbances.
States of emergency were declared in the Carolinas; Virginia; Washington, DC; and Maryland, where some coastal areas are still recovering from summer storms.