Residents across North Carolina’s Outer Banks and coast braced for flooding from storm surge and powerful winds Wednesday as Hurricane Erin churned hundreds of miles away in the Atlantic Ocean.

Two homes on the North Carolina Outer Banks sit precariously in the high waves with their days seemingly numbered.

Officials have ordered evacuations of Hatteras and Ocracoke islands even without a hurricane warning because that tiny ribbon of highway called NC 12 will likely be torn up and washed out in several ...