The National Hurricane Center said late Thursday night that maximum winds at the center of the hurricane were 115 miles per hour, making it a Category 3 storm. Hurricane warnings were issued for the length of the North Carolina coast, where Irene is expected to make landfall on Saturday afternoon, and hurricane watches were posted in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey, where the storm is expected to lash coastal areas before reaching New York in a somewhat weakened state on Sunday.
A tropical storm warning was also in effect in South Carolina, and conditions along the coast there are expected to deteriorate as the hurricane passes on Friday. It spared Florida for the most part as it lashed the Bahamas, but the authorities in Palm Beach County said at least eight people were injured when they were hit by a hurricane-spawned wave on a Boynton Beach Inlet jetty, The Associated Press reported.
In New York Region, Residents prepared for evacuation. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg preached caution and preparation Thursday morning as Hurricane Irene churned toward the Northeast, and he warned that the storm could cause damage and flooding this weekend. Evacuation contingencies have been put in place for low-lying areas of the city, like Coney Island in Brooklyn, parts of the Rockaways in Queens, the Staten Island coast and Battery Park City in Lower Manhattan.
“We hope for the best,” the mayor told reporters during a news conference in Queens, “but we prepare for the worst.”
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