18:04 15Sep2003 UPDATE 1-Hurricane Isabel sets course for N.C. Outer Banks


MIAMI, Sept 15 (Reuters) - Residents of North Carolina's vulnerable
Outer Banks cast a wary eye seaward on Monday as powerful Hurricane Isabel
whirled through the Atlantic with its sights on Cape Hatteras and the
Chesapeake Bay region.
Still one of the Atlantic's most powerful hurricanes in recent memory,
Isabel weakened only slightly to winds of 140 mph (225 kph) and slowed in
forward speed on a path that could see it hit land around Cape Hatteras,
North Carolina, on Thursday.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center's five-day forecast, which has a
large margin of error, had the storm moving onshore near Cape Hatteras and
then northward along the Chesapeake near Washington D.C., through Virginia,
Maryland and Pennsylvania.
"Right now the forecast is very uncertain. It looks like it's going to
hit somewhere in that Outer Banks area," hurricane center meteorologist Ken
Haydu said. "But we're still looking four days ahead and our confidence
starts to wane a little bit at that point."
Residents of the tiny Outer Banks islands began hurricane preparations
as emergency managers met to discuss whether to evacuate, a process that
takes a long time in an island chain full of vacation homes linked the
mainland only by narrow roads and ferries.
"We have made a lot of preparations. We've got to get everything lashed
down, picked up and put away. We started doing that yesterday," said Bob
Sebrell, reached by telephone at his Tradewinds tackle shop in Ocracoke.
"Checked the generator out, made sure it fired up.
"But today, we've got a number of customers who are still fishing. It's
a nice, sunny, calm day today."
No evacuation orders were in effect yet in North Carolina, the state's
emergency management office said.
NAVY MAY MOVE SHIPS TO SEA
The Navy and Air Force were watching the storm closely but said at
midday on Monday that no decisions had yet been made to move warships and
aircraft away from bases along the central eastern coast in Isabel's
potential path.
"Typically, the ships will move out to sea away from the hurricane,
circle around the back side and then come in behind it," said Ted Brown, an
Atlantic Fleet spokesman at Atlantic Fleet headquarters in Norfolk,
Virginia. About 70 ships, from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to
cruisers and destroyers, could be moved to sea to ride out a blow that might
slam them against docks.
Isabel's sustained winds, which have fluctuated as it moves through the
open Atlantic, were at 140 mph (225 kph), putting it at Category 4 on the
Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. Such a storm is capable of
tearing roofs off houses and can raise tides 13-18 feet (4-5.5 metres) above
normal.
Isabel has reached Category 5, the top of the Saffir-Simpson scale with
sustained winds above 155 mph (250 mph), several times in the last few days.
At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), the center of Isabel was about 780 miles
(1,255 km) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, at latitude
25.2 north and longitude 69.4 west, the hurricane center said.
The storm was moving west-northwest at 8 miles (13 kph) and was
expected to turn gradually toward the northwest in the next day, forecasters
said.
Only three Category 5 hurricanes have hit the U.S. mainland since
1900 -- Hurricane Andrew, which became the costliest natural disaster in
U.S. history when it hit the Miami area in 1992, Camille on the Gulf coast
in 1969 and the unnamed storm of 1935 in the Florida Keys.
Forecaster said Isabel could weaken before hitting land, but was likely
to be a "major" hurricane with winds of 111 mph (179 kph) or greater.
Hurricane Isabel was the first Category 5 storm to form in the
Atlantic-Caribbean region since Hurricane Mitch, which killed thousands of
people when it ravaged Central America in 1998.
On the Outer Banks, residents will be faced with the decision to stay or
flee in the next day or so.
"We like weather out here. Weather is part of the deal," Sebrell said.
"We'd like to stay. But we're watching it and if it looks dangerous, we will
leave."


. Monday, 15 September 2003 17:43:16RTRS [nNAJL91502] {C}ENDS