It’s been four weeks since Hurricane Florence hit the coast of North Carolina, and there’s already another hurricane making its way toward the state.
Hurricane Michael made landfall on the Florida Panhandle early Wednesday afternoon as a Category 4 and is expected to travel up the east coast through the end of the week.
Early Wednesday, Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency for North Carolina due to risk from Michael.
“I’m taking action to get North Carolina ready for Hurricane Michael, and I encourage people across our state to get ready as well,” Cooper said in a Wednesday press release. “Make no mistake — Hurricane Michael is a dreadful storm, and it poses serious risks to North Carolina.”
The storm should weaken rapidly before reaching the Carolinas, but tropical storm-force winds and heavy rain are still likely in many parts of of the state, the N.C. Department of Public Safety said.
Many of the devastating effects of Florence were due to its slow moving nature. However, Michael is expected to move quickly, reaching North Carolina by Wednesday night.
“Fortunately, this time the storm is not expected to stall,” said Ken Widelski, the national weather liaison at NOAA. “It will be moving rather quickly and out to sea off the southern New England coast by Friday.”
Jeffrey Byard, associate administrator for the Office of Response and Recovery of FEMA, said Hurricane Michael is different from Florence in many ways. Michael’s quick moving path has made the time to prepare much shorter than that of Florence.
"The time to evacuate and heed the local warnings is now," Byard said in a briefing. "As Ken just alluded to, Hurricane Michael is going to be a devastating storm to a part of Florida that has not seen a storm of this magnitude in quite some time."
