Hanna hammers Wrightsville Beach

CNN
Published: September 6, 2008

Tropical Storm Hanna landed on the Carolina coast without much fanfare early Saturday, battering beaches with large waves and threatening flash floods with heavy rains.

As of 5 a.m., flooding, wind damage and power outages were limited, according to emergency officials.

“It’s actually going fairly well, with some reports of minor flooding,” said South Carolina Emergency Management spokesman Derrec Becker.

Hanna moved ashore at 3:20 a.m. near the South Carolina-North Carolina border and was moving rapidly inland on a northeast, over the mid-Atlantic and New England states, pouring heavy rain along the way.

The National Hurricane Center’s 5 a.m. advisory said Hanna’s top winds had dropped to 60 mph (97 km/hr) and it was moving toward the north-northwest at 22 mph (35 km/hr), the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm’s center was about 25 miles (40 km) west-northwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, the NHC said.

The beaches of Oak Island, North Carolina—just east of where Hanna made landfall—suffered large waves that flattened some sand dunes with repeated pounding.

The island’s Ocean Crest pier, rebuilt after Hurricane Floyd destroyed it nine years ago, held up well under Hanna’s less fierce waves.

Around 12,000 North Carolina homes were without electricity, mostly in the counties nearest to where Hanna made landfall, according to North Carolina Emergency Management spokesman Mark Van Sciver.

There were no deaths reported, flooding was limited, and no highways were closed, he said. The extent of damage caused by Hanna’s winds will not be known until after sunrise, he said.

The 49 emergency shelters opened in North Carolina housed about 1,500 Saturday morning, he said.

In South Carolina, there were no reports of major storm damage and flooding was limited, according to South Carolina Emergency Management spokesman Derrec Becker.

About 10,000 South Carolina homes were without power, mostly in the Myrtle Beach area, Becker said.

Fifteen shelters gave refuge to 444 people in his state, Becker said. Rainfall accumulations from Hanna could total 4 to 6 inches from central North Carolina into the mid-Atlantic states, the NHC said. Some isolated areas could get as much as 10 inches of rain.

“The potential for flash flooding will be significant for the mid-Atlantic region and southern New England,” the NHC said.

Forecasters also warned that isolated tornadoes were possible over the coastal plains of South and North Carolina and southeast Virginia on Saturday morning.

Hanna—which killed 137 people in Haiti—forced North and South Carolina to open emergency centers, but no mandatory evacuation orders were issued since early predictions of a stronger hurricane faded on its approach.

The historic city of Charleston, which earlier in the week appeared dead center in the predicted path, prepared for the worst with workers boarding up city buildings and firefighters distributing sandbags to residents and business owners.

Also as a precaution, the Charleston airport was closed Friday afternoon.

With the storm moving more to the east, the most vulnerable coastal area appears to be North Carolina’s Outer Banks, which are east of the expected landfall.