Mainers make final preparation

ELLSWORTH - Hurricane Earl continued to march north Thursday, setting coastal residents on edge from North Carolina to Maine and prompting federal officials to warn the public to make contingency plans as soon as possible.

"This is a day of action," Craig Fugate, administrator of Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Thursday morning during a telephone conference with reporters. "Conditions are going to deteriorate rapidly along the East Coast tonight and tomorrow."

Hurricane warnings for the Category 2 storm, which Thursday evening had estimated sustained winds of 110 mph, had been established for coastal North Carolina, Cape Cod and southeast Massachusetts, while all of the Maine coast was under a tropical storm watch. At about 8:30 p.m. Thursday, the center of the storm was located roughly 160 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C.

The storm is expected to roar into the Gulf of Maine tonight and to pass into Canadian waters Saturday morning.

Gov. John Baldacci met with federal, state and county emergency response officials in Augusta on Thursday afternoon to assess the storm's damage potential. According to Baldacci, Hancock most comfortable sandals in the world and Washington counties likely will experience the highest winds, which could range between 39 and 73 mph.

In a prepared statement, he said Earl's effects may range from high waves and moderately high winds and rain to a potentially heavier impact statewide if it moves farther west.

"The state is coordinating information and resource needs to protect people in Maine," Baldacci said in the statement. "We've been through storms before, and we have been preparing for many days with our public and private partners. We have emergency personnel in Augusta and on the ground across the state ready for this storm no matter what track it takes."

The National Weather Service has indicated that regardless of the eventual track of Hurricane Earl, high waves and strong rip currents are likely along the entire coastline of Maine, according to Baldacci.

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Officials in Acadia National Park, where a 7-year-old girl died last year when a wave generated by Hurricane Bill dragged her and several others into the water, have said they plan to monitor weather conditions and to restrict access to some parts of the park if they become severe enough. These restrictions could include closing the park's Seawall and Blackwoods campgrounds, which are located on Mount Desert Island near the shore, they have said.

Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center, said Thursday that the storm is expected to weaken but remain relatively strong as it moves north. The storm's center likely will pass just east of Nantucket Island, immediately south of Cape Cod.

"The [hurricane's] eye is going to be huge by then" Read said.

He said the storm is expected to grow in size, though not necessarily in strength, during an eyewall replacement cycle, but when this might occur he was not sure. An eyewall replacement cycle is when a small, tight eye - the calm center of a hurricane around which the storm's winds swirl - collapses and is replaced by a larger eye, he said. This could spread the hurricane's winds out over a greater storm diameter, Read said.

The National Weather Service is predicting wind gusts up to 85 mph for CapeReplica Watches
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