FEMA: Be prepared just in case Hurricane Earl hits

Representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) are telling people not to change their Labor Day holiday plans due to Hurricane Earl, but to be prepared to change their plans.

As of Tuesday, Hurricane Earl was a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds of up to 135 mph. Local news reports on Wednesday said Earl was downgraded to a Category 3. The projected track of the storm was to come near the coast of the Carolinas and then travel up the eastern seaboard. However, the storm could change its course and make landfall or come closer to the shore than is presently being forecast.

The Cape May Star and Wave (the Ocean City Sentinel’s sister newspaper) participated in a media conference call with FEMA regarding Hurricane Earl on Tuesday. Participating in conference were FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate and Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center.

As of Tuesday, Hurricane Earl was 200 miles from Grand Turk Island and about 1,000 miles south of Cape Hatteras, moving northwesterly. The storm was running in the open Atlantic east of the Bahamas, and by Thursday is expected to turn toward the northeast. “By Friday, if everything works out perfectly, it will run parallel to the coast,” Fugate said.

The hurricane has already had some effect on Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, although they were not hit directly.

Tito Hernandez, a FEMA official speaking from Puerto Rico, said up to 200,000 electric customers were without power Tuesday, and the U.S. Virgin Islands had shut down 90 percent of its power as a preventive measure. On Tuesday, Puerto Rico had 160 people being sheltered in 18 shelters. The Virgin Islands had four shelters set up and were housing about 57 people, but the numbers were rapidly dwindling as conditions improved.…[more]

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