N.J. and Del. prepare for worst of Hurricane Earl - despite a pleasant forecast

Mammoth Hurricane Earl is unlikely to end New Jersey's streak of 107 years without a hurricane's making landfall. But Shore emergency officials said they weren't quite ready to exhale.

Earl was forecast to pass close enough Friday to generate rain, high winds, angry waves, perhaps minor tidal flooding, and a good scare along the Delaware and South Jersey coasts.

A westward jog in Earl's path would mean more punishing conditions regardless of whether the storm came ashore. Two 20th century hurricanes that never reached New Jersey's coastline were far more damaging than the one that did, in 1903.

On Thursday, beach towns conducted preparedness drills, securing lifeguard equipment, rescue boats, and trash cans. Sea Isle City, in Cape May County, had a 2.5-ton military cargo truck at the ready.

"We want to make sure everything is in place," said Michael Dattilo, acting business administrator for nearby Ocean City.

The Cape May-Lewes Ferry halted most departures for Friday and said cancellations could lap into Saturday.

The dire precautions belied the fact that the weather forecast for the rest of Labor Day weekend is shockingly splendid, with a cool air mass so refreshing, it could restore a curmudgeon's sense of well-being.

But Earl remained a frightening wild card for Friday.

After passing dangerously close to North Carolina's Outer Banks early in the morning, Earl was forecast to zip toward Nova Scotia. Storm warnings and watches in effect Friday were posted from Hatteras to Halifax.

Mandatory evacuations were ordered for the Outer Banks. Nantucket, Mass., planned to set up a shelter at a high school. And Earl was expected to remain a hurricane all the way to Canada.

The storm was projected to pass within 150 miles of the Jersey Shore on Friday afternoon, a subtle westward adjustment from the Wednesday forecast.

That should spare the state from hurricane-force winds - 74 m.p.h. or better - but Earl's wingspan is enormous. Tropical-storm-force winds, at least 39 m.p.h., radiated 230 miles from the center Thursday.

A tropical-storm warning was in effect for the entire New Jersey coast, with a hurricane watch for Delaware beaches.

"We're telling everybody to secure any and all objects that can become windblown and turn into missiles," said Allyn Seel, deputy director of the Atlantic County Office of Emergency Management. "We're also looking at possibly some loss of power."

Katrina Wells, 32, prepared for just such an eventuality Thursday, buying batteries, sandbags, and other supplies at an Ocean City hardware store. She had hoped to be laying in food and booze for a party at her family's vacation place in the Gardens section.

"We were supposed to have a houseful of people this weekend," she said. "But some have canceled out because they're worried about the hurricane.

"I'm a little bummed about it," Wells said.

For all of Earl's bluster, the Shore could escape with little more than minor flooding at Friday afternoon's high tide, said meteorologist Dean Iovino of the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.

But hurricanes have been known to disobey computer models. Iovino reiterated that damage could occur without landfall.

Although the causes remain puzzling, offshore hurricanes in 1938 and 1944 devastated New Jersey towns. One hypothesis is that hurricane "tidal waves" were responsible, according to an analysis by Harry S. Woodworth, now retired from the National Weather Service.

Winds blow counterclockwise around hurricane centers, and areas on the western flank experience powerful north and northwest winds.

The winds generated by those '38 and '44 storms may have created "blowout tides" headed away from the shore. When the winds relaxed, as the storms pulled away, the pent-up water may have rushed landward with devastating force.

"It does sound plausible to me," said Alan Ruffman, a geoscientist and hurricane historian affiliated with the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, in Nova Scotia.

Following Earl, the East Coast may get an anxiety break, though storms are lined up all the way to Africa.

Simultaneous tropical cyclones can work against each other, said Frank D. Marks, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Research Division.

Fiona, on its way to pester Bermuda, already has been upstaged by Earl and probably won't grow up to be a hurricane.

"There's a bit of a traffic jam," Marks said.

In this case, a benign one.