From coastal communities in North Carolina and Virginia, where people scrambled to leave or hunkered down with canned food and flashlights, to Washington, where federal business was set to a halt, authorities and residents braced for flooding, power outages and disruption.

?Tropical storm conditions are already spreading across the coastline,? the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory as Isabel bore down on the North Carolina coast. The hurricane was expected to make landfall there yesterday, then head north through Virginia and swipe the US capital with 96 kph winds, potentially triggering tornadoes and mudslides, forecasters said.

Around 200,000 people in coastal areas of North Carolina and Virginia were ordered to evacuate or risk getting trapped by flooding from storm surges up to 3.3 metres. The Office of Personnel Management said the federal government, except for emergency personnel, would be closed yesterday in the Washington metropolitan area. The local transit system and most schools also announced plans to shut down.

Some leave, other hunker down

US Airways canceled hundreds of flights ? serving airports in North Carolina, Virginia and the Washington airports ? yesterday and Amtrak halted virtually all train service south of Washington. Other airlines advised passengers to check for cancellations and delays.

Bush left the capital by helicopter for his Camp David retreat on Wednesday evening, a day early, to beat the storm. He was meeting there yesterday with Jordan?s King Abdullah. Isabel?s hurricane-force winds extend 185 km from its center. Forecasters said it could dump 25 cm of rain on a region saturated from months of above-normal rainfall.

Well over 100,000 people were told to leave the North Carolina coast, many on the fragile Outer Banks islands that jut into the Atlantic. In Virginia, authorities told 87,000 people in the low-lying areas of Hampton Roads to leave.

While many heeded the warning, some decided to stock up and stay put. Mari Pohlhaus, who lives along Smith Creek in Norfolk, an area that can flood even during normal thunderstorms, decided her 100-year-old house would be safe.

Pohlhaus and her two daughters spent Wednesday filling a hurricane chest with blankets, rain gear and other supplies. She said most of her neighbours appear to be staying put as well. ?I haven?t seen any of them leaving,? said Pohlhaus. ?They?re all hunkering down.?

Isabel was a strong Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale measuring hurricanes? destructive power. Category 2 storms can badly damage mobile homes and roofs, rip down power lines and cell phone towers and block roads with felled trees and utility poles.

In Powhatan, west of the Virginia capital, Richmond, hairstylist Angel Beach worried that her mobile home, which survived a tornado in May, might not stand up to this storm. She planned to leave her children, aged 2 and six months with a babysitter who lives in a brick house and ride out the storm herself at the Cutting Edge hair salon where she works. ?No way would I have the kids at home during the hurricane,? Beach said.

Yesterday its center was 400 km south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, at latitude 31.9 north and longitude 73.9 west. It was heading north-northwest at 20 kph. Hurricane warnings were posted for the Atlantic Coast from Cape Fear in North Carolina to Chincoteague in Virginia, including the Chesapeake Bay estuary south of Smith Point.

Jim Loney

<B>FACTBOX</B>

Deadliest, costliest, most powerful storms in US

l Deadliest The three deadliest tropical cyclones to hit the United States all occurred before the National Hurricane Center began naming them in 1953.

1. The Galveston, Texas, hurricane of 1900 killed more than 8,000 people.
2. A hurricane southeast of Lake Okeechobee, Florida, in 1928 killed 1,836 people when it sent a wall of water over lakeside farming communities.
3. A hurricane that hit the Florida Keys and southern Texas in 1919 killed 600 people on land and is estimated to have killed over 500 more on ships lost at sea.

Costliest

1. Hurricane Andrew caused $26.5 billion of damage when it hit southeast Florida and Louisiana in 1992 and remains the most costly natural disaster in US history.
2. Hurricane Hugo caused $7 billion of damage in South Carolina in 1989.
3. Hurricane Floyd caused $4.5 billion of damage in the Mid-Atlantic and northeast US states in 1999.

l Strongest Yesterday, Isabel was a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale that measures hurricanes? destructive power. Three Category 5 storms with sustained winds over 249 kph have hit the United States since 1900. Air pressure at the surface is considered the most accurate measure of intensity ? the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.

1. The unnamed hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935 had a central pressure of 892 millibars or 26.35 inches.
2. Hurricane Camille, which hit Mississippi, Louisiana and Virginia in 1969, had a central pressure of 909 millibars or 26.84 inches.
3. Hurricane Andrew, which hit southeast Florida and Louisiana in 1992, had a central pressure of 922 millibars or 27.23 inches.