Hurricane Irene is wreaking havoc on the North Carolina coast as it barrels north, leaving close to 1 million homes and businesses without power and claiming at least four lives since it made landfall.
Residents in North Carolina, Virgininia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. are all suffering from power outages caused by the storm, which is sending wind gusts of up to 115 mph across North Carolina, according to ABC affiliate WVEC in Virginia.
The hurricane has also left widespread damage from winds, flooding, and tornadoes, in addition to multiple deaths, including that of an 11-year-old boy in Newport News, Va.
Police told ABC News that the 11-year-old and his mother were in the same room of their apartment when the tree crashed through the roof, hitting the boy and missing the mother. The boy was found pinned under the tree on ground level.
Other deaths blamed on the storm included a man who suffered a heart attack in Onslow County, N.C., according to the the News & Observer, and a man whose car skidded off the road and into a tree in Pitt County, NC. There are also reports of a man missing in the Cape Fear River in Castle Hayne.
Hurricane Irene: North Carolina Braces for Impact
Watch Video Two people were rescued from a sailboat in Norfolk, Va., by swimmers who jumped into choppy waters to save them as waves and wind battered their boat, according to WVEC. The man, woman and their cat had left Annapolis, Md., on Friday in order to escape the storm.
Live Storm Tracker: Hurricane Irene
The center of Hurricane Irene hit the coast of North Carolina near Cape Lookout around 7:30 a.m. ET with Category 1-force winds of 85 mph.
As it moves up the East Coast, the hurricane overnight and through Sunday it is expected to pound Washington, D.C.; Maryland; Delaware; New Jersey; Pennsylvania; New York; and coastal Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
The hurricane has already produced tornadoes in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Tornado watches are still in effect in those three states, as well as in New Jersey.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has issued a prepare-to-deploy order for 6,500 active duty troops from all the services to support hurricane relief efforts if necessary.
President Obama spoke with government officials about the storm at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) command center.
Obama said that the storm is "going to be touch and go but the federal government is prepared."
"It's going to be a long 72 hours," he said.
Stacy Township, on the coast of North Carolina, was battered with 93 mph wind gusts this morning, and winds up to 115 mph have been reported in parts of eastern North Carolina.
The far end of the fishing pier in Atlantic Beach, N.C., collapsed overnight. Though much of the 100-foot long pier is still standing, but its end has disappeared into the ocean.
Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds, in the outer banks of North Carolina, experienced severe flooding, according to multiple reports, and there were flash flood warnings across eastern North Carolina and eastern Virginia.
Nearly 400,000 homes in North Carolina are experiencing power outages, according to Power Energy. Winds up to 85 mph ripped power lines from their poles, causing many of the shortages. The hardest hit areas were Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach, N.C.
"Our crews are restoring service as quickly as possible, where it is safe to do so," Power Energy tweeted.
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