LOS ANGELES – Whitney Houston, who ruled as pop music’s queen until her majestic voice was ravaged by drug use and her regal image was ruined by erratic behavior and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown, died Saturday.BUXTON, N.C. – Coastal residents hunkered down as Hurricane Earl closed in with 105 -mph winds Thursday on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, the first and perhaps most destructive stop on the storm’s projected journey up the Eastern Seaboard.
The hurricane’s squalls began to lash the long ribbon of barrier islands Thursday night. Gusts above 40 mph made signs shake and the heavy rain fall sideways in Buxton, the southeasternmost tip of the Outer Banks.
Hurricane Earl’s winds were slowing, from 140 mph early Thursday to 105 mph, Category 2 strength, by late Thursday. But forecasters warned that it remained powerful, with hurricane-force winds of 74 mph or more extending 70 miles from its center and tropical storm-force winds of at least 35 mph reaching more than 200 miles.
National Weather Service meteorologist Hal Austin said the eye of the hurricane was expected to get as close as 55 miles east of the Outer Banks about 2 a.m. today. The coast was expected to be lashed by hurricane-force winds for a couple of hours with a storm surge of up to 5 feet and waves 18 feet high.
The storm late Thursday was about 100 miles south of Cape Hatteras.
Earl’s arrival could mark the start of at least 24 hours of stormy, windy weather along the East Coast. It could snarl travelers’ Labor Day weekend plans and strike a second blow to the vacation homes and cottages on Long Island, Nantucket Island and Cape Cod. Forecast models showed the most likely place Earl will make landfall is western Nova Scotia, Canada, where it could still be a hurricane, hurricane center deputy director Ed Rappaport said.
Shelters were open in inland North Carolina, and officials on Nantucket Island, Mass., planned to set up a shelter at a high school today.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Rhode Island Gov. Donald Carcieri declared a state of emergency. Similar declarations have also been made in North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland.
As of Thursday night, the only evacuations ordered were on the Outer Banks. About 35,000 tourists and residents were urged to leave.
Forecasters said that after Earl passes the Outer Banks, a kink in the jetstream over the eastern U.S. should push the storm away from the coast.
Earl is expected to move north-northeast for much of today, passing close to Long Island, Cape Cod and Nantucket, which could get gusts up to 100 mph.
