In Kitty Hawk, home to aviation pioneers the Wright brothers, most residents had finished boarding up and were heading out of town early Wednesday. Isabel was churning in toward a densely populated region in which more than 50 million people live, and North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia declared emergencies and put their National Guard units on watch.

"All preparations to protect life and property should be rushed to completion in the hurricane warning area," the Miami-based National Hurricane Center warned.

"Most people are being smart, they're making plans to evacuate, getting their last belongings," firefighter Cole Yeatts told AFP. "We're orienting them toward shelters, but a lot of them are going to stay with family and friends" inland.

In this area of low-lying barrier islands, mainstay tourism has ground to a halt until Isabel has passed. Graffiti scribbled on plywood boards left behind read "Take it easy, Izzy" and "Blow, Izzy, blow."

Fred Gentry was scrambling to try to protect his home, just 75 feetmeters) away from the ocean and the only one not built on stilts in his area, piecing together a wall of wood more than a meter (yard) high.

"I got flooded during (Hurricane) Floyd -- seven inches of water in the house. I was not as well prepared. With the wall and all, I hope this time around" luck will be with me, he said. "I'm not a hero, I'm not stupid. I'm out here to protect my property, but I don't plan to stick around too long."

At 1500 GMT, a hurricane warning was in effect from Cape Fear, North Carolina to Chincoteague, Virginia, the NHC said. A hurricane warning means hurricane conditions are expected within the warning area generally within 24 hours.

The storm's center was about 644 kilometers (400 miles) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, moving toward the north-northwest near 14.5 kilometers (nine miles) per hour.

"The center of Isabel is expected to make landfall in eastern North Carolina during the day Thursday," the center forecast. "However, the precise timing and location of landfall is uncertain and conditions will deteriorate over a large area well before the center reaches the coast. Tropical storm conditions are expected to reach the coastline" late Wednesday.

With maximum sustained winds around 177 kilometers (110 miles) per hour, Isabel is a strong Category Two storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale, likely to cause rough seas and flooding of low-lying areas, damaging roofing materials, windows, vegetation and mobile homes.

Forecasters were calling for storm surge flooding of seven to 11 feetto 3.4 meters) above normal tide levels and "storm total rainfalls of six to 10 inches (15 to 25 centimeters) with locally higher amounts" as Isabel roars in.

Isabel is far from the first storm to close in on North Carolina.

In September 1999, flooding brought by Hurricane Floyd turned into the worst natural disaster to hit the southeastern state, racking up about six billion dollars in insured and uninsured damage.

A mass evacuation of people along the eastern seaboard in anticipation of Floyd's arrival was the largest peacetime evacuation ever; more than 62,000 people sought shelters at state facilities, while another estimated 41,000 or more sought refuge in inland motels, with friends or at non-state shelters.

Then-president Bill Clinton declared 66 North Carolina counties major disaster areas. Agriculture losses alone topped 830 million dollars. And flooding tugged more than 225 coffins from the ground, sweeping them downstream. Bodies had to be identified and reburied.

TERRA.WIRE