East on Alert for Hurricane of Great Force

The National Weather Service posted a hurricane watch from South Carolina to Virginia on Wednesday as Gloria, one of the strongest and most dangerous Atlantic storms of this century, churned past the Bahamas and headed north toward the Eastern Seaboard.

The hurricane, packing 130-m.p.h. winds, could come ashore by late today anywhere between the South Carolina coast and northern New England, forecasters said, adding that the storm is capable of causing “catastrophic” damage.

“It is a strong storm. Everyone along the East Coast needs to pay attention to it,” said Neil Frank, director of the National Hurricane Center in Coral Gables, Fla.

The 300-mile-wide hurricane has been classified as a Category 4 storm on a weather scale that rates the strength of hurricanes from 1 to 5. Only four hurricanes in this century have been ranked 5.

Although powerful hurricanes have battered the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida in recent years, forecasters said that only one Atlantic-area storm has been more powerful than Hurricane Gloria--and none stronger to sweep in from the open Atlantic since weather record-keeping began.

As the hurricane headed north and began picking up speed Wednesday, emergency officials from South Carolina to Virginia organized contingency plans and began restricting tourists from some coastal areas. North Carolina officials barred all but property owners from Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks, and the National Park Service ordered a campground there evacuated.

‘All Too Glad to Leave’

Tom Ditt, North Carolina’s emergency services director, said that about 600 residents of the island voluntarily left their homes after being alerted. The residents “were all too glad to leave. . . . They saw the kind of damage that Hurricane Elena did recently down in Texas, and they don’t want any part of that down here,” he said.

Meanwhile, ships at the U.S. Navy base in Charleston, S.C., were sent to sea to avoid pierside damage should the hurricane come ashore there, Petty Officer 1st Class Bryan Mansfield said. The base was placed on “Hurricane 2” status, meaning that destructive winds could hit by late today, and personnel were recalled to the base, he added.

At midnight, the hurricane was reported 460 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., and moving at a speed of 15 m.p.h. Officials believe that Florida and the Bahamas have escaped the brunt of the hurricane, suggesting that the storm “is now likely to touch down just about anywhere along the Eastern Seaboard, from the mid-Atlantic states up to northern New England, sometime in the next two days,” Ron White of the National Weather Service said.

The storm originated as a tropical depression near Cape Verde off the African coast five days ago and gathered strength as it moved across the Atlantic. The storm, which reportedly has an “eye” eight miles across, was classified as a hurricane Sunday.

Such “Cape Verde” storms are considered to be extremely dangerous when they originate in September and October, forecasters said.

Strength Loss Possible

Although forecasters said it is possible that the storm will lose some of its strength over the Atlantic before heading inland, they cautioned that the hurricane could still be quite strong and could cause considerable damage.

“Anybody on the Eastern Seaboard who plans to be on the coast this weekend should monitor this hurricane carefully, just to be on the safe side,” White said. “It’s the kind of situation that could change from hour to hour.”