Hold For Release : Hurricane Bob Whips Across North Carolina

Hurricane Bob charged across North Carolina’s Outer Banks late Sunday, flooding roads and downing power lines with 115 m.p.h. winds.

The eye of the hurricane brushed past Cape Hatteras at 20 m.p.h. about an hour before midnight and continued north over the islands.

Thousands of people along North Carolina’s coast and points north had fled inland or fastened down their belongings and summoned the courage to stay put earlier Sunday night as Bob stormed toward shore, spawning a path of tornadoes and rainstorms.

The Atlantic season’s first hurricane generated warnings and watches from North Carolina to Massachusetts.

Weather experts did not expect the hurricane to develop into a major killer but they warned that it could cause massive property damage because of storm surges of several feet above normal tide.

Although hurricane scientists said that they did not expect the storm to grow much stronger, its development caught them by surprise. In Miami, National Hurricane Center director Robert Sheets said that Bob “intensified faster than we thought; that’s the surprise.”

Indeed, some 24 hours after the season’s second tropical storm was christened Bob, it grew into a minimal hurricane with winds of 74 m.p.h.

In North Carolina officials had called on residents, including a heavy influx of tourists at the state’s Outer Banks barrier islands, to move inland as the hurricane approached.

With memories of the September, 1989, Hurricane Hugo fresh in their minds, many were taking heed.

“We’ve had voluntary evacuation since early this morning,” said Tom Gray, a spokesman for Dare County, N.C. He said that most of the 1,000 year-round residents of Buxton, as well as “four times that many tourists” had left by nightfall.

Before fleeing the storm’s path along roads that became severely clogged, residents boarded up windows or taped them to prevent glass from shattering. They tied down boats and even lawn furniture. Hardware stores and grocery stores were jammed as people purchased supplies.

All along the North Carolina Outer Banks, a strip of narrow islands along the northern half of the coast, rain and wind signaled Hurricane Bob’s impending arrival. At least two tornadoes were spotted in southeast North Carolina, according to the weather service, which predicted more tornadoes.

“We’ve got gale-force winds, and have suffered some structural damage” to buildings, Gray said. “We’ve also had some ocean over-wash.” A section of North Carolina 12, the only route off Ocracoke Island, was closed as water washed over it.