MIAMI - Hurricane Isabel weakened slightly early Monday but still packed powerful Category 4 winds as it swept across the Atlantic Ocean on a course that could slam it into the mid-Atlantic Coast later this week.
Computer models showed that weather conditions over the East Coast should prevent Isabel from turning back out to sea and missing land, hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart said. Forecasters warned officials from the Carolinas into the Northeast to closely monitor the storm's progress.
Models showed the storm weakening during the next few days but hitting the East Coast somewhere between North Carolina and New Jersey with 130 mph winds late Thursday or early Friday.
"It's hard to pinpoint one specific city when the storm is that far away," said Krissy Williams, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center (news - web sites).
At 5 a.m. EDT, Isabel's maximum sustained wind speed was at 150 mph 6 mph below the minimum for Category 5 and down 10 mph from measurements taken Sunday. Fluctuation in strength is common to major hurricanes, forecasters said. Experts had said it would be extremely unusual for Isabel to maintain Category 5 strength as it moved north over cooler water.
The storm was centered about 820 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C. and about 525 miles east of Nassau in the Bahamas. Hurricane-force wind of at least 74 mph extended 115 miles out from the center. Isabel was moving toward the west-northwest at about 10 mph.
Some East Coast residents were already preparing for the worst.
John Byrnes, of Wilmington, N.C., visited a home improvement store to augment his hurricane-proofing supplies, buying more plywood, two-by-fours, and enough screws to barricade his home and his in-laws' home near the Intracoastal Waterway, as well as a downtown law office. He also had a household generator and an extra tank of propane gas ready to run the appliances.
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We're all pretty much taken care of," Byrnes said. "We're in standby mode. Hopefully it won't come here."
Even with plywood at its highest prices in a decade, Steve Myers had a steady stream of customers looking for supplies to board up windows in and around Georgetown, S.C.
At the 84 Lumber he co-manages there, a half-inch-thick sheet now costs about $20, but that's "cheaper than a $300 window," Myers said.
In Washington, D.C., emergency officials were working on acquiring additional sandbags, and planned to meet with other department and critical services leaders Monday.
"Then we're going to pray," said Peter LaPorte, director of the Emergency Management Agency.
The U.S. State Department issued a travel warning advising tourists to avoid the Bahamas, and large ocean swells and dangerous surf were forecast for parts of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the Bahamas during the next few days.
Forecaster Miles Lawrence of the National Hurricane Center added that dangerous surf conditions will affect the southeastern United States for the next several days.
The last Category 5 Atlantic hurricane was Mitch in 1998, which killed about 11,000 people in Central America. The last two Category 5 hurricanes to strike the United States were Andrew in 1992 and Camille in 1969.
The Atlantic hurricane season began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.
