Hurricane Florence is a Category 2 hurricane as of Thursday morning with sustained winds of 110 miles per hour. That’s a slightly less powerful hurricane than earlier, but officials still expect widespread damage.
"It’s still very scary."
That’s Jordan Baker, Meteorologist with the National Weather Service. He says while Florence’s track has taken a slightly southern shift, with the eye passing below Bald Head Island, it saves the Cape Fear region from the eye making landfall.
"But the storm is so large and so powerful that we’ll have pretty big impacts whether it be flooding from the storm being almost stationary for quite some time and strong winds pushing storm surge on the coast and through multiple tide cycles as well. So that’s something to consider."
The official track puts southeastern North Carolina on the northeast side of the eye – which Baker describes as the side that creates the most damage.
“Extreme impacts” such as life-threatening storm surge, catastrophic flooding from extended rainfall, and severe structural damage to homes making some uninhabitable for a significant period of time is still likely, says Baker.
