Dorian, back to a Category 3 hurricane, creeps up US coast

Hurricane Dorian, back to a Category 3 storm, began raking the Southeast US seaboard early Thursday and left tens of thousands without power as it threatened to inundate low-lying coasts from Georgia to Virginia with a life-threatening storm surge after its deadly mauling of the Bahamas.

Dorian squatted over the island nation as its strongest hurricane on record, leaving widespread devastation and at least 20 people dead.

But it weakened substantially in the days since, dropping from a Category 5 to a Category 2 storm before increasing again late Wednesday.

Dorian could maintain this intensity for several days before gradually weakening through Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

As of early Thursday more than 68,700 customers in Charleston County and over 15,200 in Beaufort County were without power, according to Dominion Energy.

Berkeley Electric Cooperative reports another 12,600 lost electricity in Charleston County.

Duke Energy in a news release Wednesday said it expected the storm to cause 700,000 outages in the Carolinas and that it brought in resources from 23 states and Canada to respond "as soon as it was safe to do so."
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said "we are very worried, especially about the barrier islands getting cut off."