NAGS HEAD, N.C, (Reuters) - The first hurricane of the Atlantic season made landfall on the North Carolina coast Thursday night, a windy, wet party-pooper that forced thousands of vacationers to scrap their July Fourth holiday plans amid evacuation orders.
Hurricane Arthur crossed the coast near Cape Lookout at the southern end of North Carolina's Outer Banks at 11:15 p.m. EDT (0315 GMT), with maximum sustained winds of 100 miles per hour (160 kph), earning it Category 2 status on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.