Nightly News   |  August 26, 2011

Irene brings rain, heavy seas to Carolinas

NBC’s Mark Potter joins Brian Williams from Nags Head, N.C. with the latest on Irene.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> carolina. mark potter , living proof that these outer bands of this storm are already starting, though, mark, the storm center , of course, as brian pointed out is still an event that isn't due where you are almost first light tomorrow, correct?

>> reporter: that's exactly right, but we are starting to feel the first of the heavy rain bands here now, the wind and the waves are also starting to kick up. you can see them on that pier behind me. we're going to have gale force winds tonight and hurricane force winds tomorrow. but that cone of uncertainty that goes just to the west of us. we could have heavy surf coming in on the eastern shoreline and the western shoreline causing extensive damage to roads and even homes. that's why emergency managers are urging everyone to get off this island. but unfortunately, there's some residents here who are going to stay and take that risk.

>> while the locals have seen higher winds and bigger storms in terms of the energy, they have not seen a kind of storm mass as big as this?

>> reporter: exactly right. and they have not seen that problem like they're talking here, if that were to happen, where the waves would come in from both sides, that is what has scared some of the old-timers actually that we have talked to. they say we have weathered other storms and this is the one that bothered us. we saw them pack up and go and that's the reason they gave for it.

>> mark potter on the outer banks of north carolina . mark,