Hurricane Erin battered North Carolina’s Outer Banks with strong winds and waves that flooded part of the main highway and surged under beachfront homes as the monster storm inched closer to the mid-Atlantic coast.

Hurricane Erin, now a Category 2 storm, has triggered a state of emergency in North Carolina, where residents and visitors along the Outer Banks are under evacuation orders. The Outer Banks is also under a tropical storm warning; Erin is forecast to hit the islands with heavy rain and rough winds on Wednesday night.