Coastal areas from Florida to New England experienced rip-current warnings, closed beaches and treacherous waves as Hurricane Erin approached. Forecasters expect the storm's outer edges to bring high winds, large swells and life-threatening rip currents into Friday while the center stays far offshore. Major beach closures and swimming bans were enacted in New York, Long Island, New Jersey and parts of Delaware. Nantucket could see waves exceeding 10 feet, and North Carolina's Outer Banks face the greatest threat with mandatory evacuations and potential storm surge inundating roads up to 15 feet. Erin's tropical-storm-force winds extend about 230 miles and are forecast to grow.
From Florida to New England, people trying to enjoy the last hurrahs of summer along the coast were met with rip-current warnings, closed beaches and in some cases already treacherous waves as Hurricane Erin inched closer Wednesday. While forecasters remain confident that the center of the monster storm will stay far offshore, the outer edges are expected to bring high winds, large swells and life-threatening rip currents into Friday. But the biggest swells along the East Coast could come as early as Wednesday.
Erin has become an unusually large and deceptively worrisome storm, with its tropical storm winds stretching 230 miles (370 kilometers) from its core. Forecasters expect it will grow larger in size as it moves through the Atlantic and curls north. On Tuesday it lashed the Turks and Caicos Islands, where government services were suspended and residents were ordered to stay home, along with parts of the Bahamas before its expected turn toward Bermuda.
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