Hurricane Florence is developing in the Caribbean as the first big hurricane of the season.
It was declared a Category 4, by forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida earlier this afternoon.
Potentially catastrophic, the storm got more intense as it moved over the warm Atlantic Ocean, where temperatures are near 30 C with sustained winds of up to 195 km/h.
At noon ET, Florence was about 925 kilometres south-southeast of Bermuda and was moving west at 20 km/h.
The governors of North and South Carolina and Virginia have already declared states of emergency ahead of the approaching storm, and evacuation orders are underway on the barrier islands.
According to records kept for more than 150 years, North Carolina was hit olny once by a Category 4 hurricane, and that was Hazel, in 1954.
Hazel tracked north that year and devastated Toronto.
Hurricane Hazel: an Oct. 14, 1954 aerial view of the aftermatn of hurricane flood waters in Toronto. ( CP 1954)
On Friday October 15, 1954, Hazel brought winds of up to 124 kilometres an hour overnight, and more than 200 millimetres of rain falling every 48 hours.
Firefighters and emergency volunteers watched houses lifted off their foundations, with families screaming for help on the roofs, and were powerless to help in the raging Humber River.
When it was over, more than 4,000 people were homeless, 50 bridges had been washed out and 81 people were dead.
The reconstruction cost over $100 million (Cdn) about a billion dollars today, and led to major urban renewal and infrastructure projects in the worst hit areas.
The low-lying areas that were the worst-hit, were made parks, and houses were never allowed to built in these flood plains again.
Meanhwile, Tropical storm Gordon brought rain to Toronto, Canada’s largest city, and it is tracking north east bringing from 30 to 60 mm of rain, and winds of up to 30 to 40 km/h, through southern Quebec and into the maritime provinces.
Hurricane Florence had the Norwegian Cruise Line ship rerouted from Bermuda to the Maritimes. This is the Norwegian Dawn docked in Halifax, Nova Scotia yesterday. (Jeorge Sadi/CBC)
Norwegian Dawn, a cruise liner that left the Port of Boston on Friday, was diverted from its original destination of Bermuda, and is now making chillier ports of call in Nova Scotia.
Passengers were only notified of the change shortly before arriving at the port, and while some are disappointed, and most of them had to buy jackets and some warmer clothes, Richard Hatin was going with the flow.
“The adventure is the travelling,” Richard Hatin told CBC News, explaining that he didn’t hesitate about boarding the ship, even with new destinations.
“And now we get to come to some beautiful new places we haven’t been to yet. So this is kind of exciting.”
Hatin took a bus tour of Halifax and saw the Citadel and the grave sites of the Titanic victims from the double-decker bus.
Hurricanes, Isaac and Helene are currently developing in the Atlantic in the wake of Florence.
(With files from CBC and CP)
