Hurricane Irene Grows Stronger; Carolinas Prepare - Polidicks

[quote][B][I][U]Irene Grows Stronger; Carolinas Prepare[/U][/I][/B] Forecast Track Has Category 3 Hurricane Off Florida Coast Friday UPDATED: 2:42 pm EDT August 23, 2011 JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- A rapidly strengthening Hurricane Irene roared off the Dominican Republic's resort-dotted northern coast on Monday, whipping up high waves and torrential downpours on a track that could see it reach the U.S. Southeast as a major storm by the end of the week. The 11 a.m. Tuesday National Hurricane Center path moved the projected track slightly more to the east, taking Jacksonville just out of the hurricane's margin of error. "The 'cone of uncertainty,' the margin of error with forecasting, is starting to edge further and further from our area," Channel 4 meteorologist Rebecca Barry said. Irene grew into a Category 2 hurricane late Monday and the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it could reach Category 3 as early as Tuesday and possibly become a monster Category 4 storm within 72 hours. "We didn't anticipate it gaining this much strength this early," said center meteorologist Chris Landsea, adding that the ocean's warm temperatures and the current atmosphere is "very conducive" to energizing storms. Forecasters said it could still be that strong when it slams into the United States -- likely in Carolinas over the weekend. Authorities on North Carolina's Ocracoke Island issued a mandatory evacuation order for visitors to leave starting at 5 a.m. Wednesday. "The track forecast for the center of Hurricane Irene has shifted a little farther east, but passing directly over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream will cause it to be more powerful than a storm hugging the coast," hurricane expert George Winterling wrote on his Eye on the Storm blog Tuesday morning. "Residents along Florida's and Georgia's east coast should not relax their vigilance for the possibility of hurricane conditions on Friday." Irene is expected to reach Cagetory 3 strength by the time it passes the Bahamas on Wednesday. Earlier, the storm slashed directly across Puerto Rico, tearing up trees and knocking out power to more than a million people, then headed out to sea north of the Dominican Republic, where the powerful storm's outer bands were buffeting the north coast with dangerous sea surge and downpours. Late Monday, the storm's downpours forced more than 1,000 Dominicans to evacuate their homes, with some families in low-lying areas fleeing to churches and public buildings. Others hunkered down inside their homes as the winds howled outside and heavy waves pounded the piers and washed onto coastal boulevards. "We are going to see if the zinc roof resists" the storm, Fidelina Magdaleno, 60, said in her house in Nagua while a chicken dinner was prepared inside without electricity. Residents earlier had jammed supermarkets and gas stations to get supplies for the storm. Schools were closed and emergency services were placed on alert. At least 33 flights were canceled at Santo Domingo's international airport. The first hurricane of the Atlantic season was a large system that could cause dangerous mudslides and floods in Dominican Republic, the hurricane center said. It was not expected to make a direct hit on neighboring Haiti, though that country could still see heavy rain from the storm. Dominican officials said the government had emergency food available for 1.5 million people if needed and the country's military and public safety brigades were on alert. "We have taken all precautions," presidential spokesman Rafael Nunez said. Irene is forecast to grow into a Category 3 hurricane late Tuesday as it moves over the warm waters of the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas, and could maintain that strength as it nears the U.S. coast. Florida residents were urged to ensure they had batteries, drinking water, food and other supplies. "We must prepare for the worst and hope for the best," said Joe Martinez, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Commission. Officials in Charleston, South Carolina, also warned residents to monitor Irene closely. It has been six years since a hurricane hit the South Carolina coast, said Joe Farmer of the state Emergency Management Division. Police and civil protection officials in the Dominican Republic made their way along the beaches of the country's northern coast to warn people away from the surging sea. Resorts pulled up the umbrellas and lounge chairs as the storm made its way toward the country. At the Wyndham Tangerine, a hotel in the resort area of Sosua and Cabarete, the staff converted a conference room into a temporary storm refuge for 300 people, said deputy general manager Karen Gonzalez. Jose Manuel Mendez, director of the country's Emergency Operations Center, said that only about 135 people were in public shelters, but that hundreds of others were staying with friends and family to avoid the storm, which was expected to drop as much as 14 inches (35 centimeters) at higher elevations. The 100 tourists who booked an ocean-view room at a Puerto Plata resort were moved to another building on Monday for their safety, said Medardo Carrera, manager for VH Gran Ventana Beach Resort, and the hotel ordered its 450 guests to stay inside their rooms Monday night. At the nearby Casa Colonial Beach & Spa, several tourists packed their bags and fled ahead of the storm, hoping to catch one of the last flights for Miami, said concierge Zadaliy Placido. The hurricane earlier cut power to more than a million people in Puerto Rico. There were no reports of deaths or major injuries, but Gov. Luis Fortuno declared a state of emergency and urged people to stay indoors to avoid downed power lines, flooded streets and other hazards. During the storm's march through the region, Academy Award-winning actress Kate Winslet and others escaped uninjured when a blaze gutted Richard Branson's home on his private isle in the British Virgin Islands. According to Branson, about 20 people, including Winslet and her young children, were staying in his eight-bedroom Great House on Necker Island when the fire broke out around 4 a.m. amid the storm's lightning and high winds. By late Monday night, Irene was centered about 100 miles (155 kms) east of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (155 kph). Hurricane specialist John Cangialosi said it could become a Category 4 storm within 72 hours. In the overseas U.K. territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands, located in the Atlantic between the Bahamas and Haiti, there was a steady stream of customers buying plywood and nails at hardware stores, while others readied storm shutters and emergency kits at home. On the island of Grand Turk, where Hurricane Ike damaged roughly 95 percent of homes in September 2008, Peter White was taking no chances as the sparsely populated territory was slowly covered by iron-gray skies on Monday afternoon. "We've loaded up on water and rations and our shutters are ready to go up. Bad memories of Ike are a big reason why we get so prepared now," White said from the Breezy Brea area along the eastern coast of Grand Turk. In the Bahamian capital of Nassau, Henry Vera, of Long Island, New York, said the approaching hurricane will not cause him to cut his vacation short in Cable Beach, where he and his girlfriend are booked at a hotel until Sunday. "I've never been in a hurricane before so I have no idea what to expect," the 29-year-old Mineola resident said. "But I'm not going to leave early, I still have a week off work and I'm still on vacation." But Marcia Perry, a 36-year-old marketing executive from Hershey, Pennsylvania, who traveled to Nassau's Atlantis Resort with her daughter and her friends said she will go home early if the storm appears to be a major threat. "We don't need to pay a lot of money to be worried and scared, so we will wait until tomorrow to make a decision," she said on Monday. In Puerto Rico, 600 crews spread out across the island to repair toppled light poles, and the majority of customers were expected to have power by late Monday, power company spokesman Carlos Monroig said. Schools, most government offices and many businesses remained closed. Flights resumed at the international airport in San Juan by midmorning. The storm entered through the southeast coastal town of Humacao, but emergency management regional director Orlando Diaz said the damage seemed to be less than he feared. "We thought things were going to be a bit more tragic," he said. "I was surprised that we didn't see the amount of rain I expected." Copyright 2011 by News4Jax.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.[/quote] [img]http://i.imgur.com/WdwJ5.png[/img] Yep Its going in a semi-straight line so it will obviously curve to North Carolina.

It keeps being readjusted further east. Good thing, too. I didn't want to have to clean up that mess.

Cuba and all those other islands are magic, all hurricanes form there and all hurricanes are diverted there.

I have family in Puerto Rico and they had flash floods and the roads were turned into rivers. It'll probably be a regular storm the time it hits Maryland.

No! No! Bad Irene! Steer away from Pennsylvania! I got shit to do this weekend!

Honestly I would welcome a hurricane right now. We've had a drought for months in Texas and I've heard it's suppose to be this way throughout the year.

P. much whats happening right before it hits. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yOEOJ1BARk[/media]

[QUOTE=The freeman;31904836] Yep Its going in a semi-straight line so it will obviously curve to North Carolina.[/QUOTE] I like how you don't know shit about how landmasses affect weather systems.

Isn't this supposed to hit Connecticut too? Shit, my town is right at the shore

Oh god its coming right twards me.

I'm ready for you Irene

[QUOTE=OvB;31905108]Honestly I would welcome a hurricane right now. We've had a drought for months in Texas and I've heard it's suppose to be this way throughout the year.[/QUOTE] We had 2 inches of rain this whole summer! I hate texas.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;31909029]Stop living on the southern border, the rest of Texas gets plenty of rain. You're not missing anything anyway, it rains here (NC) all day every day and it sucks. I've lost count of how many thunder storms have gone through here in the last two weeks.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.lcra.org/water/drought/index.html[/url] It's 99 degrees right now at 9:00PM. [editline]23rd August 2011[/editline] Also: [img]http://i.imgur.com/1mrlE.gif[/img] [img]http://i.imgur.com/y2obr.gif[/img] [img]http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/1032/at201109satanim.gif[/img]

i live in south carolina oh boy

Fuck, it's probably going to hit my area around Sunday. And we were going to have a BBQ then... Fuck.

Its just a hurricane people, calm down.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;31909434]They have computers there?[/QUOTE] sure do except no one fucking knows how to use them they're all about JESUS AND HOMOPHOBIA!!! I LIKE TO HUNT, FISH, AND WORK ON CARS YEEHAAWWW [editline]24th August 2011[/editline] someone please help i hate it here

inland US master race [editline]23rd August 2011[/editline] fuck your hurricanes, we only have tornadoes

[QUOTE=richard9311;31905203]P. much whats happening right before it hits. [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yOEOJ1BARk[/media][/QUOTE] Man oh man, that's such an awesome sight in real-life. Nothing like a large convoy rolling out.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;31911606]Move to North Carolina, it's safer here. Plus we aren't South Carolina so that's a plus.[/QUOTE] I live in north carolina, What town? I'm in the Triad. Oh and, the fact that the hurricane [I]may[/I] hit DC reminds me of that movie, where a hurricane does hit DC and damages it somewhat, what was the name of that movie?

FUCK, I wanted to have the day off school and work. Now it's not gonna prolly hit us. I have skewed priorities.

[QUOTE=JerryK;31910345]inland US master race [editline]23rd August 2011[/editline] fuck your hurricanes, we only have tornadoes[/QUOTE] west coast US master race fuck your hurricanes, fuck your tornados, our fucking ground decides to randomly fidget every other month

california master race land of the magic earthquake that strikes every year once in the month of august to october

[QUOTE=butler_;31912391]california master race land of the magic earthquake that strikes every year once in the month of august to october[/QUOTE] or if you're observant and realize small ones happen all the time Giant, infrastructure-destroying earthquakes don't happen yearly.

[QUOTE=Atlascore;31912620]But your forests do burn down every year.[/QUOTE] Yes. Yes they do.

[QUOTE=Rediscover;31909611]sure do except no one fucking knows how to use them they're all about JESUS AND HOMOPHOBIA!!! I LIKE TO HUNT, FISH, AND WORK ON CARS YEEHAAWWW [editline]24th August 2011[/editline] someone please help i hate it here[/QUOTE] You idiot, what are you doing in the interior corridor? Come to me in Charleston. There are 70+ art galleries, one of the best liberal arts colleges in the nation, one of the best medical universities in the nation, a Google datacenter, the latest Boeing facility, and God knows how many government engineering firms. Here hicks are the exception, not the rule. It's just the rural areas pulling us down.

Oh shit, where I live (Kendall area) is gonna get some horrible storms from this. Bring it on Irene, BRING IT ON!

So it's gonna hit Pennsylvania the day before school starts again for me. Maybe I'll get lucky and there'll be flooding :v: Then again, my school district wouldn't cancel or even delay school for the fucking apocalypse.

D: I live in NC, oh no, I see clouds out, this isn't good D:

It'll probably be a Cat 2 or so when it hits me here in Central VA... Not worrying about it, we need the rain.