Isaias downgraded to tropical storm over eastern North Carolina

Hurricane Isaias has been downgraded down to a tropical storm after making landfall near Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, according to an official with the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane had touched down just after 11 p.m. on Monday with maximum sustained winds of 136 km/h. The storm now has maximum sustained winds of 117 km/h.

"Now that the center has moved further inland into east North Carolina, the winds are now coming back down, so it has been downgraded back to a tropical storm," Robbie Berg, a hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center, told the Associated Press.

The storm set off flooding and sparked five home fires in Ocean Isle Beach, Debbie Smith, the town's mayor, told WECT-TV. 

About 128 kilometres north of Ocean Isle Beach, about 30 people were displaced due to a fire at a condominium complex in Surf City, news outlets reported. It is not clear if the fires were connected to the storm. No injuries have been reported.

Duke Energy reported hundreds of thousands of power outages as heavy rains and winds battered areas including Wrightsville, Kure, and Carolina beaches in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Coastal shops and restaurants closed early, power began to flicker at oceanfront hotels and even the most adventurous of beachgoers abandoned the sand Monday night as newly restrengthened Hurricane Isaias sped toward the Carolinas.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center warned oceanside home dwellers to brace for storm surges up to 1.5 metres and rain up to 20 cm, as Isaias moved up the coast. The Carolinas weren't the only states at risk.

Tornado warning

"All those rains could produce flash flooding across portions of the eastern Carolinas and mid-Atlantic, and even in the northeast U.S.," said Daniel Brown, senior hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center. A tropical storm warning extended all the way up to Maine, where flash flooding was possible in some areas on Wednesday.

The center also warned of possible tornadoes in North Carolina on Monday night and early Tuesday, and from eastern Virginia to southern New England later Tuesday.

Isaias was upgraded again from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane Monday evening. Early Tuesday the storm was centred about 95 kilometers southwest of Greenville, North Carolina. It was moving quickly north northeast over eastern North Carolina at 35 km/h and this general motion accompanied by an increase in forward speed is expected through Tuesday.

The center will move into southeastern Virginia around daybreak, near or along the coast of mid-Atlantic states and continue across the northeastern United States later into the evening.

Strong winds and heavy rainfall were expected to spread northward along the mid-Atlantic coast Tuesday morning.

Isaias killed two people in the Caribbean and roughed up the Bahamas but remained at sea as it brushed past Florida over the weekend, providing some welcome relief to emergency managers who had to accommodate mask-wearing evacuees in storm shelters.

Authorities in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, ordered swimmers out of the water to avoid rough surf and strong rip currents. By nightfall, power began to flicker at beachfront hotels as Isaias crossed the last bit of warm water on its path toward the U.S. mainland.

As the storm neared the shore, a gauge on a pier in Myrtle Beach recorded its third highest water level since it was set up in 1976. Only Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016 pushed more salt water inland.