HATTERAS, N.C. – Powerful Hurricane Erin continued lashing hundreds of miles of the Northeast coastline on Thursday after creating big waves and coastal flooding in the Mid-Atlantic. The sprawling hurricane is now turning northeast toward Bermuda and continues to bring widespread coastal impacts to the East Coast.

Tens of thousands had been evacuated off the most vulnerable of North Carolina 's Outer Banks as a storm surge of up to 4 feet was likely. Meanwhile, beaches remained off limits to swimming up and down the East Coast as dangerous waves and potentially deadly rip currents angrily pounded the shorelines.

Hurricane Erin was still a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph on Thursday evening.

While the center of Erin and its peak winds were some 300 miles east of

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