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Hurricane Ophelia's heavy rains hit US coast
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-15 09:05

Hurricane Ophelia lashed the US North Carolina coast with high winds and heavy rains Wednesday, beginning an anticipated two-day assault that threatened serious flooding and an 11-foot storm surge, AP reported.

"If you have not heeded the warning before, let me be clear right now: Ophelia is a dangerous storm," Gov. Mike Easley said from Raleigh, appealing especially to those in flood-prone areas to evacuate.

Ophelia was moving so slowly — just 7 mph — that authorities expected the storm's passage through North Carolina to take 48 hours from the start of rainfall on the southeastern coast Tuesday afternoon to the storm's anticipated exit into the Atlantic late Thursday.

The storm had sustained winds of 85 mph Wednesday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center said. Hurricane warnings covered the entire North Carolina coast from the South Carolina line to Virginia, where a tropical storm warning covered the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

Norman Chambliss, left, and his son Yates, right, try to start a pump to remove water from outside his home at Wrightsville Beach, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2005, as Hurricane Ophelia threatened the North Carolina coast. [AP]

More than 12 inches of rain had fallen on Oak Island at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, said meteorologist Jeff Orrock with the National Weather Service in Raleigh.

More than 77,000 homes and business were without power in eastern North Carolina, electric utilities said.

On Ocean Isle Beach, south of Carolina Beach, a 50-foot section of beachfront road was washed out by heavy surf and the only bridge to the island was closed.

Video broadcast by Durham's WTVD-TV from Carteret County on the central coast showed a section from the end of a hotel's fishing pier breaking off and floating away.

Jetnella Gibbs and her family made their way to a shelter at a Craven County high school after the rain started Tuesday.

"We noticed the street was starting to fill up, and I said, 'It's time to go,'" she said. "I know if this little bit here has flooded the street, what will it do when it really pours?"

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