Hurricane Florence: Georgia Declares State Of Emergency

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said meanwhile that Florence’s maximum sustained winds had eased slightly and it had been downgraded to a Category 3 storm from a Category 4 on the five-level Saffir-Simpson wind scale.

The NHC stressed, however, that while a slow weakening is expected over the next 24 hours “Florence is still forecast to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane when it nears the US coast late Thursday and Friday.”

As Florence churned across the Atlantic packing winds of 125 miles per hour (205 kph), President Donald Trump and state officials stepped up appeals to residents in the path of the monster storm to evacuate before it is too late.

“Get out of its way, don’t play games with it, it’s a big one, maybe as big as they’ve seen,” Trump said. “We’ll handle it. We’re ready, we’re able.

“But despite that, bad things can happen when you are talking about a storm this size,” he added.

Up to 1.7 million people are under voluntary or mandatory evacuation orders, and coastal residents were frantically boarding up homes and businesses and hitting the road on Wednesday as the storm approached.

Florence is forecast to dump up to three feet (almost a meter) of rain in some areas after it makes landfall in North and South Carolina.

“This rainfall would produce catastrophic flash flooding and significant river flooding,” the NHC said.