Island communities off the coast of North Carolina are bracing for flooding ahead of the year’s first Atlantic hurricane, Hurricane Erin. Although forecasters are confident that the storm won’t make direct landfall in the United States,

Hurricane Erin has strengthened to a Category 4 hurricane as it threatens to bring life-threatening surf and rip currents to the eastern coast of the United States. The rains caused by the storm are already beginning to hit the south-eastern Bahamas, and the Turk and Caicos Islands, where a tropical storm warning is in effect.

Rip currents are the third leading cause of deaths from hurricanes, and they can happen on a sunny day hundreds of miles from the storm.