As Felix Fades, Residents Relax Worries Wane, But Drifting Storm Still Potent

With a collective sigh of relief, residents along the North Carolina coast began to unbatten the hatches Thursday as Hurricane Felix appeared to be skulking away into the Atlantic.

Hurricane warnings were dropped for North Carolina and Virginia, and authorities lifted an evacuation order along the Outer Banks, the thin crescent of islands that had been most directly threatened.

People began trickling back to the Outer Banks by ferry and bridge.

“It’s dying down,” said a jubilant Bill Tarplee, an employee of Pigman Bar-b-que in Nags Head who was ripping the plywood off the restaurant’s windows. “There’s blue sky, sunshine. I don’t see a hurricane.”

Although the storm was still considered potent, its winds had slowed to 75 mph - just 1 mph over hurricane strength.

As of 8 p.m., it was about 260 miles east-northeast of Cape Hatteras, drifting slightly out to sea. The National Weather Service expected little movement through Saturday night.

The danger, however, was by no means over. Forecasters warned there is no guarantee the storm would continue on the east-northeast track carrying it slowly back into the Atlantic. “Felix may just be executing a clockwise loop,” the National Weather Service said.

Felix could still cause damage by continuing to pound the beaches with waves, and much of the coast from North Carolina to Delaware was under a tropical storm warning. But it appeared unlikely that this section of mid-Atlantic coast would see a direct hit.

Felix was a bust for both wind and rain on the Outer Banks, with gusts Thursday near 30 mph and rainfall of just .02 of an inch.

James England, a National Weather Service forecaster in Buxton, said he had to call his wife to remind her to water the garden. “Usually in this kind of situation, you’re not thinking of watering,” he said.

But the storm blew by during one of the peak weeks of the summer season, costing businesses in the area an estimated $4 million a day in lost revenue.

At the 88-room Sanderling Inn Resort, general manager Tina Burger said losses were running $30,000 a day. “It’s extremely frustrating,” she said. “Because you have no way of making up the lost revenue.”