Hurricane Erin is on its way to deliver a glancing blow to the mid-Atlantic seaboard, and multiple beach towns in Delaware and Maryland have shut down swimming in preparation for the storm.
The towns include Ocean City, Maryland, which closed off public access to the ocean until further notice on Tuesday, and Bethany Beach, Delaware, which also prohibited swimming on Tuesday.
Dewey Beach, Delaware, and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, stopped swimmers Tuesday but allowed people to go into the ocean waist-deep on Wednesday.
Hurricane Erin was expected to cause storm surge flooding and other tropical storm conditions in the Outer Banks of North Carolina Wednesday as it passes offshore, and then cause tropical storm conditions on the Virginia coastline on Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm is not forecast to make landfall in the U.S.
Rescuers saved 75 people from rip currents at Wrightsville Beach in North Carolina through Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. Multiple Outer Banks islands were evacuated and North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, declared a state of emergency.
The storm showed maximum sustained wind speeds of nearly 110 mph Wednesday, making Hurricane Erin a category two hurricane. Experts, however, expect the storm to regain strength and possibly become a major hurricane again before ultimately petering out at sea by the end of the week, the National Hurricane Center said.
