Thousands of visitors abandoned their vacation plans and left North Carolina's Outer Banks ahead of Hurricane Maria as it moved northward in the Atlantic.
The hurricane that battered the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico last week has weakened, with maximum sustained winds Tuesday near 75 mph. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Maria was expected to weaken into a tropical storm Tuesday night or Wednesday.
While Maria's eye remained far offshore — centered about 175 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras Tuesday morning and moving north at 7 mph — a tropical storm warning was in effect for a swath of the North Carolina coast, from Bogue Inlet to the Virginia border. The hurricane center warned of a storm surge from Ocracoke Inlet to Cape Hatteras.
In North Carolina, officials estimated more than 10,000 visitors complied with evacuation orders for Hatteras and Ocracoke, both barrier islands jutting into the Atlantic.
Dare County Emergency Management Director Drew Pearson said it was hard to determine exactly how many people had left Hatteras Island, but officials believe between 10,000 and 12,500 people were headed out. About 500 people who live at Hatteras year-round were not required to leave. Schools also were closed Tuesday in Dare County because of the storm conditions.
Hyde County officials said they had about 700 visitors when the evacuation was ordered at Ocracoke Island, which has about 1,000 permanent residents. By Monday morning, about 225 visitors had left.
Business owners braced for yet another financial hit. A construction accident at the peak of tourist season in late July cut power to Ocracoke and Hatteras for several days, resulting in the evacuation of an estimated 50,000 tourists. Businesses lost millions of dollars.
Some of the tourists who packed up and drove off Monday had enjoyed only one day of what was supposed to be a weeklong vacation.
On Hatteras, Jay Wrenn and his wife got ready for a five-hour drive back home to Burlington, North Carolina. They had arrived at their rented cottage in Rodanthe on Sunday with a week's worth of groceries. By noon Monday, the macaroni salad they had made was in the trash.
Maria hit Puerto Rico as a major Category 4 hurricane and claimed dozens of lives in its rampage across the Caribbean.
Hurricane Lee, meanwhile, remained far off in the open Atlantic, gradually strengthening. It was moving westward, but was forecast to swing north and east again before any tropical storm-force winds reach Bermuda.
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