Island communities off the coast of North Carolina are bracing for flooding ahead of the year’s first Atlantic hurricane, Hurricane Erin.

Although forecasters are confident that the storm won’t make direct landfall in the United States, authorities on a few islands along North Carolina’s Outer Banks issued evacuation orders and warned that some roads could be swamped by waves of 15 feet.

The monster storm intensified to a Category 4 with 140 mph maximum sustained winds early Monday while it started to lash the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeast Bahamas, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Stronger, bigger Hurricane Erin forecast to create dangerous surf along US coast

Tropical storm warnings were in effect for the southeast Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos

See Full Page