Tropical storm knocks out power in Carolinas; Florida begins evacuations.

    Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - Tropical Storm Hanna buffeted tourist beaches on the North-South Carolina border Saturday at the start of a run up the Eastern Seaboard forecast to dump heavy weekend rain from Virginia to New England.

As Tropical Storm Hanna arrives in the US, Hurricane Ike looms off the coast. (Photo: AP)

    Emergency officials were already looking past Hanna to powerful Hurricane Ike, several hundred miles out in the Atlantic. Ike, packing Category 3 hurricane winds of near 115 mph, could approach southern Florida by Monday as Hanna spins away from Canada over the North Atlantic.

    The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Hanna's center came on land about 3:20 a.m. near the state line with top sustained winds dropping to about 60 mph from near 70 mph while the storm was over water.

    "All I've heard is wind, wind and more wind," said Dylan Oslzewski, 19, working an overnight shift at a convenience store in Shallotte, N.C., about 15 miles north of the state line with South Carolina. Oslzewski said he had only seen four customers compared to 30 or 40 on a normal weekend night.

    40 Million Brace for Storm

    North Carolina emergency management officials said early Saturday they had no reports of fatalities or major damage from the storm.

    "We have reports of between 9,000 and 12,000 homes without power in the east," spokesman Mark Van Sciver told Reuters from the state's emergency management center in Raleigh. "There is also some localized flooding."

    The U.S. Census Bureau calculated that more than 40 million people in 192 counties along the Eastern Seaboard could feel effects of Hanna.

    Hanna started drenching the Carolina coast Friday, with streets in some spots flooding by late afternoon as the leading edges of the storm approached land, making people gathered on beaches shout to be heard.

    By early Saturday, the wind howled as gusts neared 50 mph and rain came in blinding bursts in Myrtle Beach. The lights flickered on and off several times along some beachfront blocks and the wind was so strong that it made waves in hotel pools.

    "Crazy"

    Vacationing friends Ken Prive, 17, and Armin Berkley, 18, from Concord, N.C., were swimming in high waves in the ocean after employees at their hotel kicked them out of the pool.

    "We're good swimmers and we want to have fun," Berkley said. "Yeah, this is crazy, but you have to live life as hard as you can."

    Police in other parts of the 50-mile-beach called the Grand Strand chased people out of the surf.

    Emergency officials urged evacuations in only a few spots in the Carolinas and about 400 people went to shelters in both states. Forecasters had said there was only a small chance of Hanna becoming a hurricane, and most people simply planned to stay off the roads until the storm passed.

    Linked to 100 Deaths

    Hanna was expected to race up the Atlantic Coast, reaching New England by Sunday morning. Tropical storm watches or warnings ran from the Carolinas to Massachusetts, and included all of Chesapeake Bay, the Washington, D.C., area and Long Island. But a hurricane watch along the Carolinas' coasts was dropped.

    The storm has been blamed for disastrous flooding and more than 100 deaths in Haiti.

    As many as 6 inches of rain were expected in the Carolinas, as well as central Virginia, Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania. Some spots could see up to 10 inches, and forecasters warned of the potential for flash flooding in the northern mid-Atlantic states and southern New England.

    Federal Emergency Management Agency officials expected Hanna to move quickly but said they had supplies in place and emergency crews ready to respond.

    Utilities as far north as New Hampshire put electric and natural gas crews on notice they might have to work long hours to repair any damage. At the Ocean Edge Resort and Club on Cape Cod in Brewster, Mass., staff members braced for rain as they prepared for an outdoor wedding Saturday. "Hopefully it will blow out to sea and it won't even bother them," said Bryan Webb, director of sales and marketing.

    In Washington, officials prepared for the possibility of flooding in low-lying neighborhoods by removing debris from catch basins, stockpiling sandbags and lining up portable pumps and generators. In New Jersey, 300 dump trucks hauled in sand to fortify a beach in the Strathmere section of Upper Township.

    Trains Canceled

    "These shipments of sand are a good thing, but if they don't work out, the people down here could lose their houses," said Tim Buckland, whose family has owned an oceanfront house in Strathmere for 50 years. He was at the beach Friday, playing in bigger-than-normal waves with his family.

    Amtrak canceled some Saturday service in preparation for Hanna. Ten trains, including the Silver Meteor between New York and Miami, and the Auto Train between Lorton, Va., and Sanford, Fla., were halted.

    Organizers of the U.S. Open in New York said they may have to reschedule some of the tennis matches after seeing forecasts calling for about 12 hours of rain and wind up to 35 mph.

    For all the talk of Hanna, there was more about Ike, which could become the fiercest storm to strike South Florida since Andrew in 1992. That hurricane did more than $26 billion in damage and was blamed for 65 deaths from wind and flooding along with car crashes and other storm-related accidents.

    FEMA officials said they were positioning supplies, search and rescue crews, communications equipment and medical teams in Florida and along the Gulf Coast - a task complicated by Ike's changing path. Tourists in the Keys were ordered to leave beginning Saturday morning.

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    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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