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Hurricane Earl bore down on a vast stretch of the US East Coast on Thursday, as tens of thousands of people fled North Carolina's barrier islands to avoid dangerous winds and surf.

The strongest Atlantic storm of 2010, Earl was expected to remain offshore but still skirt much of the eastern seaboard beginning late Thursday. It is expected to hit Canada's Nova Scotia by early Saturday.

The US National Hurricane Center downgraded Earl to a category three hurricane at 2:00 pm (1800 GMT) Thursday, but it remained a major storm on course to bring destructive winds and heavy rains to the coast of North Carolina and then move north, wreaking havoc on the end-of-summer Labor Day holiday weekend that usually draws millions to East Coast beaches.

The storm packing sustained winds near 125 miles (205 kilometers) per hour was expected to pass approximately 70 miles off the Outer Banks.

But with the Miami-based NHC predicting hurricane strength winds as far as 90 miles (145 kilometers) from the eye, coastal North Carolina residents were battening down and tourists were scattering inland.

"It's a serious storm, and we need to treat it like a serious storm," North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue said Thursday.

US officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for 30,000 residents and visitors of North Carolina's Hatteras Island.

"This is a day of action," warned Craig Fugate, chief of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

"People need to be rapidly completing their preparedness in the Carolina's Outer Banks, and for other folks along the East Coast they really need to focus today on what they are going to do when the storm gets there."

For many tourists, the arrival of the storm up-ended plans for a final few care-free days at the beach before the end of summer.

And while some storm-hardened residents were ignoring evacuation orders, Chris Davidson said he planned to drive with his wife and two children about 100 miles inland, where his mother lives.

"It seems like more people are taking it more seriously than in the past," Davidson, a hardware store manager, told AFP.

Before 1800 GMT Earl was about 245 miles (395) kilometers south of Cape Hatteras in the Outer Banks -- a narrow band of North Carolina barrier islands.

Despite a bright sunny day on the Carolina coast, the huge storm several hundred miles across was heading north at around 18 miles (30 kilometers) per hour.

The NHC also issued a hurricane warning for coastal Massachusetts, including the popular retreat areas of Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, while the Canadian Hurricane Centre issued a hurricane watch for parts of Nova Scotia.

Tropical storm warnings meanwhile were issued for points all along the US East Coast, while President Barack Obama signed a disaster declaration for North Carolina, ordering federal assistance to support response efforts.

"This is a large system that impacts well away from the center, and time will be running out for people that had not got ready," Fugate warned.

Davidson said vacationers were lamenting the premature end of their summer, while local business owners bemoaned lost revenue they had been counting on.

"It'll definitely hurt the local economy. This was a big weekend for the hotels, restaurants and other businesses -- although for us, it could give us additional business once the storm is over, depending on how bad it is."

He said Earl's arrival had brought an unwelcome end to what had been a banner year for coastal North Carolina.

"It's been a better tourist season than usual. A lot of families are staying close, driving to the beach, sharing the cost of a beach house rental," he said.

"A lot of businesses were depending on this weekend to finish the season strong."

Meanwhile, forecasters were also closely tracking the path of Tropical Storm Fiona about 520 miles (835 kilometers) south of Bermuda, with wind speeds of up to 50 miles (85 kilometers) per hour. It is expected to rake over the island chain beginning late Friday.

Gaston, the fourth tropical storm to form in the Atlantic over the past two weeks, weakened Thursday to a tropical depression, the NHC said, much to the relief of aid officials worried it would plow directly over Haiti, still recovering from January's massive earthquake.

Also on Thursday, a pilotless NASA aircraft was set to overfly Hurricane Earl, in a scientific first to gather data about the potentially deadly storm.

AFP