North Carolina News

Here’s a quick 8 p.m. Charlotte-area forecast for Hurricane Florence, with more rain possibly on its way and the bad weather expected to last through Tuesday. At 3 p.m. Thursday, the National Weather Service put Charlotte, Western North Carolina and Upstate South Carolina under a flash-flood watch from Saturday morning to Tuesday morning.: When: While Florence’s wind speeds dropped to 100 mph Thursday afternoon, it remains a massive, powerful and widening storm. Bands of rainfall…

(This story was updated at 4:30 p.m. Eastern) Hurricane Florence’s “life threatening” storm surge arrived Thursday morning, breaching dunes and sending white water and sand washing across the only highway linking North Carolina’s barrier islands in the Outer Banks. NC 12 early Thursday, as waves generated by Hurricane Florence covered the highway with sand and surf. NCDOT The North Carolina Department of Transportation closed N.C. Highway 12 shortly after 1 p.m. between Hatteras Village and…

Sandbags stood guard at the front door of Sam’s Corner, home of “beach burgers” and “World Famous Hot Dogs.” Next door, workers hauled away heavy arcade machines. Across the street, a sheriff’s deputy enforced the “closed” sign at the Garden City pier. Twenty-four hours before Hurricane Florence’s anticipated landfall along South Carolina’s coast, the Garden City community was mostly emptied out. “We’re moving out,” Georgie Martin, owner of Gigi’s Grill and the Garden City Pavilion…

Hurricane Florence’s heavy winds and rain have prompted a first round of tornado watches along coastal North Carolina. The watch is in effect until 9 p.m. Thursday. The threat is predicted to increase through Thursday and Friday, as the center of Florence moves closer to shore, said the National Hurricane Center. As of Thursday morning, winds in 40 to 73 mph range were extending 195 miles out from the center of the 300-mile-wide storm, said…

As Hurricane Florence hurtles into the Carolinas and residents gear up for what’s now a Category 1 storm, our reporters and photojournalists are on the coast and around the region. Their Wednesday reports from the coast are here. You can follow them on Twitter at https://twitter.com/newsobserver/lists/hurricane-mcclatchy NC: More than 181,000 without power 11:59 p.m.: Hurricane Florence wasn’t expected to make landfall until Friday morning, but residents in coastal areas were already losing power as fierce…