Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate and National Hurricane Center Director Bill Read urged residents, particularly along the Northeast Coast of the U.S. and Mid-Atlantic to prepare and take the tracking of Irene seriously.
“We have a lot of time to prepare, but not forever,” Fugate said on conference call with reporters Tuesday morning. “We need to watch very carefully and need to be ready for it.”
While Florida is unlikely to take a direct hit given that Irene has turned eastward as it barrels north to the U.S. mainland, the state will likely experience peripheral effects of the hurricane, given its size.
“With the current forecast, it’s highly unlikely the center, the core, is going to come across South Florida,” Read said. Instead the state should expect a hit from “the peripheral effects, like beach erosion, squally weather and maybe tropical storm force winds.
Read said while the hurricane was still organizing, as it exits the Bahamas and heads north, it will become better organized. He added that, the impacts of Hurricane Irene could be widespread and there is no reason for it not to be a major hurricane.
Irene is forecast to reach the Carolinas by Saturday morning and the mid-Atlantic region later that day and Sunday.
Fugate said FEMA was working closely with the northeast coast states that could be impacted by Irene, in support their preparedness. FEMA, he said, was coordinating with officials in Florida even though the state has a “pretty robust capability.”
