ABC News(NEW YORK) — Millions are being told to evacuate as the North and South Carolina coasts prepares for the arrival of Hurricane Florence, a Category 4 storm that continues to strengthen into “an extremely dangerous major hurricane through Thursday night.”

The National Hurricane Center is offering that warning on Tuesday morning as hurricane watches and storm surge watches were issued for the coasts of North Carolina and South Carolina for the first time. The state’s emergency management agency said it is “preparing for the possibility of a large-scale disaster.”

President Trump declared a state of emergency in North Carolina ahead of the storm. "On the forecast track, the center of Florence will move over the southwestern Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Bahamas Tuesday and Wednesday, and approach the coast of South Carolina or North Carolina on Thursday," the center said. Florence weakened slightly to a Category 3 storm on a five-step scale but had maximum sustained winds of 125 miles per hour (201 km per hour) as of 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), down from 130 mph earlier in the day. It was a potentially catastrophic Category 4 storm but was expected to keep drawing energy from the warm water and intensify to near Category 5, which means winds of 157 mph (253 kph) or higher. Hurricane Florence was upgraded to a Category 4 storm by the National Hurricane Center on Monday afternoon, and it is bearing down on the east coast of the United States. Forecasters said parts of North Carolina could get 20 inches (50 centimetres) of rain, if not more, with as much as 10 inches (25 centimetres) elsewhere in the state and in Virginia, parts of Maryland and Washington, D.C.

One trusted computer model, the European simulation, predicted more than 45 inches (115 centimetres) in parts of North Carolina.
The North Carolina Tar Heels football game against the UCF Knights and the North Carolina State Wolfpack game against the West Virginia Mountaineers are cancelled due to Hurricane Florence.