Hurricane Florence latest as of noon Tuesday 9/11/2018

• As of 11 a.m. ET Tuesday, Florence’s center had maximum sustained winds of 130 mph and was about 905 miles east-southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina.

• Florence is expected to restrengthen Tuesday and “be an extremely dangerous major hurricane through Thursday night,” the NHC said.

• Among the storm’s threats later this week: Life-threatening storm surges — up to 12 feet — along the coasts and up to 30 inches of rain into next week over parts of the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic states.

• Mandatory evacuations have been ordered for most of the South Carolina coastline, in Edisto Beach as well as from Charleston County northeast to Horry County, effective at noon Tuesday. They’ve also been ordered for parts of coastal North Carolina and Virginia.

• Though not every coastal area in North Carolina was under mandatory evacuation Tuesday morning, “I believe that people should be evacuating the coast of North Carolina,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long told CNN’s “New Day.”

• Hurricane and storm surge watches are in effect in those states, the National Hurricane Center said.

• The watches extend from Edisto Beach, South Carolina, northward to the North Carolina-Virginia border, including the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds. Those areas are at risk for hurricane conditions and “life-threatening inundation from rising water moving inland from the coastline” during the next 48 hours, the NHC said.

• The hurricane’s center weakened slightly Tuesday morning, but the storm should get stronger, Meyers said Tuesday morning. “We do expect (the storm’s) eye to get its act together again later today and become that almost-Category 5 storm at 150 to 155 mph,” he said.

As the east coast braces for Hurricane Florence, our thoughts and prayers are with the families faced with this storm. CAPS is all too familiar with the impacts of severe storms such as Hurricane Harvey that devastated our city, Houston, barely over a year ago.

We at Custom Air Products & Services, Inc. (CAPS) want everyone in the path of this storm to know that we are here to help! CAPS will have boots on the ground in the States of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. Stay tuned. We’ll be publishing updates as more information comes in.