Andrew Parker watches the latest on Hurricane Dorian from the bar at Huc-A-Poos pizza restaurant, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019, in Tybee Island, Ga. Parker said he’s been through eight hurricanes in his lifetime as a resident of Tybee. And like the others Parker said he plans on riding Dorian out at his home on the island. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton) 
Large waves crashed onto the beach of Tybee Island, Ga., Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019 as Hurricane Dorian moved closer to the Georgia coast. (Casey Jones/Savannah Morning News via AP) 
US Army National Guard Pvt. Christopher Zambuto, left, and Specialist Jermaris Hamilton assemble cots in a shelter for Hurricane Dorian evacuees inside the old Sears location at Northgate Mall, on Wednesday, Sep. 4, 2019, in Durham, NC. (Casey Toth/The News & Observer via AP) 
Boats are removed from the water at Winters Yachts in Swansboro N.C. as Hurricane Dorian moves up the East coast on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Tom Copeland) 
Kate Ball, left, joins her friend Derrian Coupe, both of Georgetown, sit at Buzz’s Roost, a restaurant and bar on Winyah Bay in Georgetown, South Carolina Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. Locals come to the bar open through hurricane weather. Last year customers waded through water to get to the open restaurant with a bar. “I can’t sit at home and do nothing,” Coupe said. (Ken Ruinard /The Independent-Mail via AP) 
Justin Patterson, left, Heather Richardson, and Beth Sabia, all of Georgetown, sit at Buzz’s Roost, a restaurant and bar on Winyah Bay in Georgetown, South Carolina Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. Locals come to the bar open through hurricane weather. Last year customers waded through water to get to the open restaurant with a bar. (Ken Ruinard /The Independent-Mail via AP) 
Kate Ball, left, joins her friend Derrian Coupe, both of Georgetown, sit at Buzz’s Roost, a restaurant and bar on Winyah Bay in Georgetown, South Carolina Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. Locals come to the bar open through hurricane weather. Last year customers waded through water to get to the open restaurant with a bar. “I can’t sit at home and do nothing,” Coupe said. ((Ken Ruinard /The Independent-Mail via AP) 
Gordon and Dina Reynolds, with their 11-year-old granddaughter, Abby, sit on cots in the hall way of the North Myrtle Beach High School that is currently being used as a Red Cross evacuation shelter Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019 in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. Weakened but still deadly, Hurricane Dorian crept up the Southeastern coast of the United States and millions were ordered to evacuate as forecasters said near-record levels of seawater and rain could inundate Georgia and the Carolinas. (Jason Lee/The Sun News via AP) 
Dora Corso sits with all her belongings in the hallway of the North Myrtle Beach High School in North Myrtle Beach, S.C., Wednesday Sept. 4, 2019. Corso was evacuated from the beach front resort where she was living to the Red Cross shelter and has no plans for where to go after the storm passes. Residents of North Myrtle Beach are awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Dorian later today and through Thursday. (Jason Lee/The Sun News via AP) 
The sun sets over Lake Eustis in Tavares, Fla., on Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. By Wednesday, Hurricane Dorian was pushing northward a relatively safe distance off the Florida coastline with reduced but still-dangerous 110 mph (175 kph) winds. An estimated 3 million people in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina were warned to clear out, and highways leading inland were turned into one-way evacuation routes. (Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel via AP) 
The destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian is seen from the air, in Marsh Harbor, Abaco Island, Bahamas, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. The death toll from Hurricane Dorian has climbed to 20. Bahamian Health Minister Duane Sands released the figure Wednesday evening and warned that more fatalities were likely. (AP Photo/Gonzalo Gaudenzi) 
The destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian is seen from the air, in Marsh Harbor, Abaco Island, Bahamas, Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019. The death toll from Hurricane Dorian has climbed to 20. Bahamian Health Minister Duane Sands released the figure Wednesday evening and warned that more fatalities were likely. (AP Photo/Gonzalo Gaudenzi) 
FILE – In this file image made from Sept. 21, 2018 drone video provided by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, light gray material flows out of a flooded coal ash dump toward the Cape Fear River at Duke Energy’s L.V. Sutton Power Station near Wilmington, N.C. Duke Energy said Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019, that it had completed extensive repairs to the dam that breached during Florence at the L.V. Sutton Power Station. (N.C. Department of Environmental Quality via AP, File) 
A customer walks out of The Tidal Market III convenience store in Wilmington, N.C, on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019. Hurricane Dorian was expected to brush just off the coast of the area (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins) 
National Guardsmen check on the Bay Tree subdivision in Little River, near North Myrtle Beach, S.C., Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019, as Hurricane Dorian moves north off the coast. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP) 
Anne Patterson takes photos of waves crashing on the shore in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019, as Hurricane Dorian moves north off the coast. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP) 
Horry County Fire Rescue walk through flood waters checking a neighborhood in Little River, near North Myrtle Beach, S.C., Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019, as Hurricane Dorian moves north off the coast. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP) 
William Ellinge, of Murrells Inlet, S.C., takes photos of waves crashing on the shore in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019, as Hurricane Dorian moves north off the coast. (Ken Ruinard/The Independent-Mail via AP) 
Bill Bailey, assistant chief of the Emerald Isle Police Department, walks past a damaged trailer in the Holiday Trav-l Park on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019, in Emerald Isle, N.C, after a possible tornado generated by Hurricane Dorian struck the area. (Julia Wall/The News & Observer via AP) 
Mobile homes are upended and debris is strewn about at the Holiday Trav-l Park, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019, in Emerald Isle, N.C, after a possible tornado generated by Hurricane Dorian struck the area. (Julia Wall/The News & Observer via AP) 
Power company lineman work to restore power after a tornado hit Emerald Isle, N.C. as Hurricane Dorian moved up the East coast on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Tom Copeland) 
CORRECTS YEAR TO 2019-Power company lineman work to restore power after a tornado hit Emerald Isle N.C. as Hurricane Dorian moved up the East coast on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Tom Copeland) 
Residents of the Boardwalk RV Park discuss the path of a possible waterspout or tornado, generated by Hurricane Dorian, struck the area, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2019, in Emerald Isle, N.C. (Julia Wall/The News & Observer via AP)
CHARLESTON, S.C. | Hurricane Dorian raked the Carolina coast with howling, window-rattling winds and sideways rain Thursday, spinning off tornadoes and knocking out power to more than 200,000 homes and businesses as it pushed northward toward the dangerously exposed Outer Banks.
Leaving at least 20 people dead in its wake in the Bahamas, Dorian swept past Florida on Wednesday at a relatively safe distance, grazed Georgia overnight, and then began hugging the South Carolina-North Carolina coastline with more serious effects.
As of midday, it was a Category 2, blowing at 110 mph (177 kph) — a far cry from the Category 5 that mauled the Bahamas, but still dangerous. About 1 million people in the two states were warned to evacuate.
“Get to safety and stay there,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said. “This won’t be a brush-by. Whether it comes ashore or not, the eye of the storm will be close enough to cause extensive damage in North Carolina.”
At least four deaths were reported, all involving men in Florida and North Carolina who died in falls or by electrocution while trimming trees, putting up storm shutters or otherwise getting ready for the storm.
The National Hurricane Center’s projected track showed Dorian passing near or over North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Friday, lashing the thin line of islands that stick out from the U.S. coast like a boxer’s chin. Dorian was then expected to peel away from the shoreline.
“I think we’re in for a great big mess,” said 61-year-old Leslie Lanier, who decided to stay behind and boarded up her home and bookstore on Ocracoke Island on the Outer Banks, making sure to move the volumes 5 to 6 feet off the ground.
“We are thinking maybe we should have moved the books higher because of storm surge,” Lanier said. “But we’re kind of to the point where we can’t do much more.”
The National Hurricane Center forecast as much as 15 inches of rain for the coastal Carolinas, with flash-flooding likely.
In Charleston, South Carolina, a historic port city of handsome antebellum homes on a peninsula that is prone to flooding even from ordinary storms, Dorian toppled some 150 trees, swamped roads and brought down power lines, officials said, but the flooding and wind weren’t nearly as bad as feared.
Walking along Charleston’s stone battery, college student Zachary Johnson sounded almost disappointed that Dorian hadn’t done more.
“I mean, it’d be terrible if it did, don’t get me wrong. I don’t know — I’m just waiting for something crazy to happen, I guess,” said Johnson, 24.
Dorian apparently spun off at least one tornado in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, damaging several homes, and another twister touched down in the beach town of Emerald Isle, North Carolina, mangling and overturning several trailer homes in a jumble of sheet metal. No immediate injuries were reported.
In coastal Wilmington, North Carolina, just above the South Carolina line, heavy rain fell horizontally, trees bent in the wind and traffic lights swayed as the hurricane drew near.
At 2 p.m. EDT, Dorian was just offshore Cape Romain, South Carolina, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of Myrtle Beach, moving north at 8 mph (13 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended about 60 miles (95 kilometers) from its center.
By midday, coastal residents in Georgia and some South Carolina counties were allowed to return home after the storm had passed, but the threat was worsening to the north.
Hundreds of shelter animals from coastal South Carolina arrived in Delaware ahead of the storm. The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware, said 200 were airlifted from shelters in danger of flooding. About 150 more were expected to arrive via land.
In an assault that began over Labor Day weekend, Dorian pounded the Bahamas with Category 5 winds up to 185 mph (295 kph), obliterating entire neighborhoods and triggering a humanitarian crisis. As it closed in on the Eastern Seaboard, Navy ships were ordered to ride out the storm at sea, and military aircraft were moved inland.
Florida and Georgia, where about 2 million people had been warned to clear out, were mostly spared since Dorian stayed offshore.
Mayor Jason Buelterman of Tybee Island, Georgia, said the beach community of 3,000 people came through it without flooding, and the lone highway linking the island to Savannah on the mainland remained open throughout the night.
“If the worst that comes out of this is people blame others for calling evacuations, then that’s wonderful,” he said.
Tybee Islander Bruce Pevey went outside to take photos of unscathed homes to text to neighbors who evacuated. The storm,