Top developments:
The eye of the storm crossed the North Carolina coast near Cape Lookout around 7:30 a.m. ET, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Irene was moving north-northeast along the coast and was expected to remain a hurricane as it hit the mid-Atlantic states on Saturday night and New England on Sunday.
With winds of 85 miles per hour, Irene had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, but forecasters warned that it remained a large and dangerous storm.
New York City ordered unprecedented evacuations and transit shutdowns as states from the Carolinas to Maine declared emergencies due to Irene, whose nearly 600 mile width guaranteed a stormy weekend for tens of millions of people.
"Staying behind is dangerous, staying behind is foolish and it's against the law,'' Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a media briefing at Coney Island in Brooklyn on Saturday.
The city's subway system is closing down at noon, an unprecedented shutdown due to natural causes.
Bloomberg said the storm surge would be around 4-7 feet, as he urged urging 370,000 people in low-lying areas to evacuate immediately.
Roughly 2.5 million people have been ordered to evacuate up and down the East Coast.
At daybreak on the North Carolina coast, winds howled through the power lines, felling trees, rain fell in sheets and some streets were flooded.
In the port and holiday city of Wilmington, North Carolina, the streets were empty and the air was filled with the sound of pine trees cracking.
One unidentified man in the Wilmington area was washed away and feared to have drowned, emergency workers said.
NBC News reported early Saturday that the end of the Atlantic Beach Pier in Atlantic Beach, N.C., collapsed into the water.
Progress Energy, the local electrical utility, said around 200,000 customers throughout coastal North Carolina were without power.
A coastal town official in North Carolina said witnesses believed a tornado spawned by Irene lifted the roof off the warehouse of a car dealership in Belhaven on Friday night and damaged a mobile home, an outbuilding and trees. Six homes were reportedly damaged by the apparent tornado.
Nearly eight inches of rain were reported in areas of North Carolina.
Warren Lee, New Hanover County's director of emergency management, said the county was still evaluating damage in the Wilmington area but that, "We fared pretty well, given the predictions we had."
In summer beach season, hundreds of thousands of residents and vacationers had evacuated from Irene's path. Supermarkets and hardware stores were inundated with people stocking up on food, water, flashlights, batteries, generators and other supplies.
"Our number of customers has tripled in the last day or two as people actually said 'Wow, this thing is going to happen,'" said Jack Gurnon, owner of a hardware store in Boston.
Airlines canceled nearly 7,000 flights over the weekend and all three New York area airports were to close to incoming flights at noon (1600 GMT) on Saturday.
"We're feeling the impacts now, but the worst is still to come," Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell told MSNBC-TV early Saturday, as rain bands from Irene started lashing the state. He said officials are especially concerned about coastal flooding.
President Barack Obama said the storm could be "extremely dangerous and costly" for a nation that recalls the destruction in 2005 from Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans, killed up to 1,800 people and caused $80 billion in damage.
- Irene makes landfall in North Carolina
- Weakens to Category 1 storm early Saturday, but is still dangerous
- End of pier at Atlantic Beach, N.C., falls into water as rain, winds lash coast
- At least 2.5 million under evacuation orders; 300,000 in NYC
- Nearly 7,000 flights canceled through Monday
The eye of the storm crossed the North Carolina coast near Cape Lookout around 7:30 a.m. ET, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Irene was moving north-northeast along the coast and was expected to remain a hurricane as it hit the mid-Atlantic states on Saturday night and New England on Sunday.
With winds of 85 miles per hour, Irene had weakened to a Category 1 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale, but forecasters warned that it remained a large and dangerous storm.
New York City ordered unprecedented evacuations and transit shutdowns as states from the Carolinas to Maine declared emergencies due to Irene, whose nearly 600 mile width guaranteed a stormy weekend for tens of millions of people.
"Staying behind is dangerous, staying behind is foolish and it's against the law,'' Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a media briefing at Coney Island in Brooklyn on Saturday.
The city's subway system is closing down at noon, an unprecedented shutdown due to natural causes.
Bloomberg said the storm surge would be around 4-7 feet, as he urged urging 370,000 people in low-lying areas to evacuate immediately.
Roughly 2.5 million people have been ordered to evacuate up and down the East Coast.
At daybreak on the North Carolina coast, winds howled through the power lines, felling trees, rain fell in sheets and some streets were flooded.
In the port and holiday city of Wilmington, North Carolina, the streets were empty and the air was filled with the sound of pine trees cracking.
One unidentified man in the Wilmington area was washed away and feared to have drowned, emergency workers said.
NBC News reported early Saturday that the end of the Atlantic Beach Pier in Atlantic Beach, N.C., collapsed into the water.
Progress Energy, the local electrical utility, said around 200,000 customers throughout coastal North Carolina were without power.
A coastal town official in North Carolina said witnesses believed a tornado spawned by Irene lifted the roof off the warehouse of a car dealership in Belhaven on Friday night and damaged a mobile home, an outbuilding and trees. Six homes were reportedly damaged by the apparent tornado.
Nearly eight inches of rain were reported in areas of North Carolina.
Warren Lee, New Hanover County's director of emergency management, said the county was still evaluating damage in the Wilmington area but that, "We fared pretty well, given the predictions we had."
In summer beach season, hundreds of thousands of residents and vacationers had evacuated from Irene's path. Supermarkets and hardware stores were inundated with people stocking up on food, water, flashlights, batteries, generators and other supplies.
"Our number of customers has tripled in the last day or two as people actually said 'Wow, this thing is going to happen,'" said Jack Gurnon, owner of a hardware store in Boston.
Airlines canceled nearly 7,000 flights over the weekend and all three New York area airports were to close to incoming flights at noon (1600 GMT) on Saturday.
"We're feeling the impacts now, but the worst is still to come," Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell told MSNBC-TV early Saturday, as rain bands from Irene started lashing the state. He said officials are especially concerned about coastal flooding.
President Barack Obama said the storm could be "extremely dangerous and costly" for a nation that recalls the destruction in 2005 from Hurricane Katrina, which swamped New Orleans, killed up to 1,800 people and caused $80 billion in damage.