Evacuations begin on tiny NC island ahead of Irene

HATTERAS, N.C. (AP) Evacuations began on a tiny barrier island off North Carolina as Hurricane Irene strengthened to a vital Category 3 storm over a Bahamas on Wednesday with a East Coast in its sights.Irene's maximum sustained winds increased to near 115 mph (185 kph) with additional strengthening forecast, a U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.The depletion in North Carolina was a test of whether people in a crosshairs of a first vital hurricane along a East Coast in years would heed orders to get out of a way.The first ferry to leave Ocracoke Island arrived just before 5:30 a.m. in nearby Hatteras with around a dozen cars on board.It won't be easy to get thousands of people off Ocracoke Island, which is accessible only by boat. The 16-mile-long barrier island is home to about 800 year-round residents as well as a tourist population that swells into a thousands when vacationers rent rooms as well as cottages. Tourists were told to evacuate Wednesday. Island residents were told to get out on Thursday.It wasn't clear how many people on a first arriving ferry Wednesday morning were tourists, but a first two cars to drive off it had New York as well as New Jersey plates.Getting off a next ferry about an hour later was a family that included newlywed Jennifer Baharek, 23, of Torrington, Conn. She as well as her husband, Andrew, were married Monday as well as planned to spend their honeymoon on a island."We just got to spend one day on a beach as well as then we went to bed early to get up for a evacuation," she said.Federal officials have warned Irene could cause flooding, energy outages or worse all along a East Coast as far north as Maine, even if it stays offshore. The projected path has gradually shifted to a east, though Irene is still expected to have landfall as a vital hurricane in North Carolina sometime over a weekend. It is then expected to continue trudging northward.Speaking Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Craig Fugate, head of a Federal Emergency Management Agency, said pe! ople as far north as New England should be ready for a storm. When asked about concerns preparing a Northeast for a hurricane, which is uncommon in that part of a country, Fugate cited Tuesday's earthquake that rattled a East Coast."It's a reminder that we don't always get to pick a next disaster," Fugate said.In North Carolina, a state-run ferry service off Ocracoke Island would be free during a evacuation, but no reservations were allowed. Boats can carry no more than 50 vehicles during a time.The island is part of North Carolina's Outer Banks, a roughly 200-mile stretch of fragile barrier islands off a state's coast. Pristine beaches as well as wild mustangs attract thousands of tourists any year. Aside from Ocracoke, a other islands are accessible by bridges to a mainland as well as ferries. The limited access can have a depletion particularly tense.All a barrier islands have a geographic weakness of jutting out into a Atlantic like a side-view mirror of a car, a location that's frequently been in a path of destructive storms over a decades.Many remember 1999's Hurricane Floyd, which made landfall as a Category 2 as well as caused a storm surge that wiped out scores of houses as well as other properties on a Outer Banks.As of 8 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Irene was centered about 335 miles (540 kilometers) southeast of Nassau in a Bahamas as well as was moving west-northwest near 9 mph (15 kph).It had already wrought destruction across a Caribbean, giving a glimpse of what a storm might bring to a Eastern Seaboard. In Puerto Rico, more than a million people were without power, as well as one woman died after trying to cross a swollen river in her car. At least hundreds were displaced by flooding in a Dominican Republic, forced to take refuge in schools as well as churches.Forecasters warned it could get worse: The storm was likely to strengthen into a Category 4 monster by a time it makes landfall in a U.S. this weekend. Irene could crawl up a coast Sunday toward a Northeast region, where residents aren't accustomed! to such storms.It's been more seven years since a vital hurricane, considered a Category 3 with winds of during least 111 mph (179 kph), strike a East Coast. Hurricane Jeanne came ashore on Florida's east coast in 2004.On North Carolina's mainland, residents who have weathered years of storms took notice. People flocked to gas stations as well as stores to batch up on supplies like gasoline for generators, plywood for boarding up windows, flashlights, batteries as well as drinking water.In a coastal city of Wilmington, Tommy Early watched Tuesday as customers came in to his Shell service station to prepare. Irene was a main topic of conversation there, as well as Early was getting ready to give a hurricane its rightful place in a thick yellow notebook, even if it takes a turn out to sea. For years, Early has tracked names, wind speeds, rainfall as well as other data from storms that are nearly as familiar there as beach-loving tourists."Hurricane Earl," Early said Tuesday, looking up a entry for a storm that narrowly missed North Carolina last year. Evacuations also were ordered last year ahead of Earl. "That was a Category 4 during one point. One hundred as well as sixty-mile-an hour winds. We got lucky that time."The last hurricane to strike a U.S. was Ike in 2008. The last Category 3 or higher to strike a Carolinas was Bonnie in 1998, but caused reduction damage than other memorable hurricanes: Hugo in 1989, Floyd in 1999 as well as Isabel in 2003.Though a Category 2, Isabel cut a new inlet through Hatteras Island as well as killed 33 people.At Craft American Hardware during Wrightsville Beach, Don Korman said he had placed a big order set to arrive Wednesday: Batteries, lanterns, tarps as well as shutter supplies."People are watching a TV, but they usually come by a few days before," he said. "If it looks like it's coming like this, you can run out of batch really quick."Korman, though, plans to be ready even for 11th-hour supply trips: a store is ready to plywood its windows as well as run off generator en! ergy unt il it becomes unsafe or unwise to keep a doors open."We won't close until a last minute," he said.Most locals were heeding a warnings as well as getting ready for a storm, though few seemed panicked."Water, batteries, flashlights as well as now I'm going to get my grocery shopping done," said Sally Godwin, carrying two large jugs of fresh water out of Korman's store with her. "I live during a beach, as well as they always evacuate it a day before. I have to have sure all my little stuff's taken care of."___Associated Press writers Tom Breen in Wilmington, N.C., as well as Michael Biesecker in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.