Residents began clearing downed trees with chain saws at about 6:30 a.m. Thousands of tourists were wandering around looking at damage, she said.
On Hatteras Island, Paul Jones, a retired Maryland state police helicopter pilot, said Arthur’s winds had shaken his house until pictures fell off the walls.
“My wind meter was destroyed … it stopped at 85 (mph) somewhere around 2 o’clock in the morning,” he added.
Emergency management officials in Dare County, which includes Cape Hatteras, said there was some flooding and scattered power outages.