As Ophelia's eyewall scraped slowly ashore Wednesday night near Morehead City, Carteret County authorities reported widespread coastal flooding and uprooted trees.

   "It's a mess," said Jack Veit, assistant county manager. "We're hoping it's out by morning. That's a long time. That's one of our concerns. It's just going to saturate the ground."

   Streets in Morehead City and in historic Beaufort nearby were flooded and thousands were without power. Authorities were investigating a report that a fishing pier went out to sea on Emerald Isle.

   "This is not that bad of a storm if it got in and got out," said Mark Powell, making his fifth trip of the day into a horizontal rain to secure fishing boats straining at moorings in Carolina Beach. "It's the longevity that's killing us."

   Alongside him was Rocky Stone, sampling his first hurricane after moving to the coast six months ago from High Point. "If this is a Category 1," he said, "I don't want to see a 3 or a 4."

   Stone's observation was widely echoed along the coast where hurricane veterans marveled at Ophelia's eccentricities: It loitered in the Atlantic for days, hurled hurricane-force winds a staggering 50 miles from its ragged core and is trudging so slowly - about 7 mph - that it should spend two days inflicting its fury on North Carolina, particularly the Outer Banks.

   "It's been very difficult to get a feeling of what Ophelia is going to do," said Dorothy Toolan of the emergency management office in Dare County, where Ophelia's eye is expected to shriek ashore Thursday morning at historic Hatteras village, elevation 10 feet, and creep up the banks for about 12 hours.

   "A long, miserable day," she said.

   "The barrier islands will be getting hammered one way coming up and the other way going back out," North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley said Wednesday, warning that Ophelia was intensifying and flooding could be worse than initially thought.

   Winds and rain pushed the Neuse River 2 feet higher than normal as far inland as New Bern, 30 miles from the coast.

   Gawkers gathered there to view the high water at Union Point Park, where a family of ducks oddly found the swollen Neuse hospitable enough for a swim.

   Hundreds headed for shelters. At Havelock Senior High School in Craven County, 64 people claimed cots in the hallways, among them 6-year-old Trevon Morris, whose house flooded in Hurricane Isabel two years ago.

   "I'm happy a little bit because the last time we had it there was flooding and I don't want that to happen," he said, doing his math homework on a Tigger blanket.

   Dusk-to-dawn curfews were ordered at beach towns behind the storm, including Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach. Downed power lines and other hazards were as common as jellyfish.

   "There's a lot of danger," warned Patrick Morton, a Brunswick emergency services official.

   Harvest of shellfish, which absorb pollutants, was ordered halted in North Carolina coastal waters for now.

   In Sneads Ferry, on the New River just south of Camp Lejeune Marine base, diesel fuel leaked from a sunken barge. A 40-foot houseboat sank nearby, leaking more fuel, and a 60-foot fishing boat was crashing ashore on the tide.

   Ten Humvees and 15 high-wheeled vehicles from the N.C. Army National Guard rolled through the storm Wednesday from Kinston to Whiteville, poised to assist with flood rescues.

   Authorities said the fragile Outer Banks faced a rough ride Thursday.

   Pamlico Sound, one of the world's largest estuaries, was expected to drain substantially, then refill as Ophelia's winds shifted. Hatteras Island, the thin membrane of sand serving as the sound's offshore barrier, was first mapped in 1585 and hurricanes have reshaped its slender shores many times in the centuries since. Cartographers may find new revisions necessary by Friday.

   "With the storm surge like this and the slow movement of this storm, it wouldn't surprise me if we didn't get another inlet opened," said Jeff Warren, of a coastal-hazards analyst with the state Division of Coastal Management.

   Ahead of the storm, at Rodanthe, about 30 miles south of Nags Head, T.J. Cary pointed to the ghosts of hurricanes past at Rodanthe Fishing Pier. A swath of sand next door used to be a 36-room hotel and nearly 40 cottages, all erased by Hurricane Isabelle two years ago on nearly the same date.

    In Nags Head, "The Shark" radio station, 102.5 FM, displayed a sense of humor, playing The Temptations' "I Wish It Would Rain."

   Tourists packed up but many were reluctant to actually flee, hesitant to abandon their weeklong rentals and as befuddled as emergency planners over Ophelia's lethargic pace and wobbly path.

   A steady flow of vacationers sauntered out onto Nags Head Fishing Pier for a glimpse of the twin attractions signaling an ill wind: roaring whitecaps and the Weather Channel's Jim Cantore.

   Pat and Charles Hurt of Durham were sticking out the storm and trying their luck off the pier. They were vacationing on Hilton Head Island when Hurricane Fran forced them home in 1996, only to have the storm mow through their hometown. Pat Hurt, a defense lawyer, reeled in a spot, a type of fish, and plopped it in a cooler.

"We'll leave," she said, "if all the spots leave."

___

(Knight Ridder Newspapers correspondents Kytja Weir, Steve Lyttle, Bruce Henderson, Henry Eichel, Mark Johnson and Celeste Smith contributed to this report.)

___

© 2005, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

Visit The Charlotte Observer on the World Wide Web at http://www.charlotte.com/

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.