KITTY HAWK, North Carolina, 18 September 2003 — Three US states declared emergencies and thousands of coastal residents piled into ferries, cars and trucks yesterday to flee the expected path of Hurricane Isabel as it closes in for a hit. In Kitty Hawk, home to aviation pioneers the Wright Brothers, most residents had finished boarding up and were heading out of town early yesterday.
Isabel was churning in toward a densely populated region in which more than 50 million people live, and North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia declared emergencies and put their National Guard units on watch.
“All preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion in the hurricane warning area,” the Miami-based National Hurricane Center warned.
“Most people are being smart, they’re making plans to evacuate, getting their last belongings,” firefighter Cole Yeatts told AFP. “We’re orienting them toward shelters, but a lot of them are going to stay with family and friends” inland.
In this area of low-lying barrier islands, mainstay tourism has ground to a halt until Isabel has passed. Graffiti scribbled on plywood boards left behind read “Take it easy, Izzy” and “Blow, Izzy, blow.”
The storm’s center was about 644 kilometers south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, moving toward the north-northwest near 14.5 kilometers per hour.
