A big one. A monster. A once-in-a-lifetime storm. Hurricane Florence deserves all the names it is being called as it threatens to cause historic flooding, blow catastrophic winds and idle for days over the Carolinas and the Mid-Atlantic.

Adding to the storm stress is uncertainty about exactly where Florence will make landfall, after a shift in its track put more of the south-eastern states in danger.

BY THE NUMBERS

— Get out: 1.7 million people are under mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders, and more than 10 million live in places under storm watches or warnings

US Hurricane
(PA Graphics)

— Grounded: Nearly 1,000 flights cancelled through to Friday

— Filling stations running on empty: 5% in North Carolina were out, plus 2.1% in South Carolina, and 1% in Virginia

— Going dark: Duke Energy anticipates one million to three million homes and businesses losing power

HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER STORM

Hurricane Florence off the eastern coast
Hurricane Florence off the eastern coast (NOAA/AP)

Florence has it all: Hot ocean temperatures that fuel hurricanes, favourable wind patterns, higher sea levels that exacerbate storm surge, cloud cover that could encompass multiple states, and an unusual combination of other weather systems that are likely to stall Florence when it hits land, allowing it to sit for days and dump huge amounts of rain.

WHAT TRUMP SAID

Worried about how the government will respond to Hurricane Florence’s devastation? President Donald Trump said there was nothing to fear because his administration did such good work responding to last year’s storms – including Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people in Puerto Rico.

In a series of tweets on Wednesday, he said the government “got A Pluses” for storm recovery in Texas and Florida, and “did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico”. His remarks fell flat in Puerto Rico where islanders are continuing to struggle a year after the Category 4 storm.

MILITARY SAFEGUARDS

Florence is heading straight for some of the most well-known military bases in the country. The Navy, Air Force and Army have been moving people, ships and aircraft out of harm’s way, though evacuations were not mandatory at bases such as Camp Lejeune.

The commanding general says anyone remaining on base will have food, water and protection despite being in the projected path of the storm.

ECONOMIC HIT

Businesses across the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia are likely to suffer financial losses from the storm, with ports closing, farmers moving livestock and expected power outages that could last for weeks.

A car parts store is left boarded up
A car parts store still open for business (Gray Whitley/Sun Journal/AP)

The losses will not be easily or quickly overcome, but it could have been worse: Labour Day marked the end of the peak tourism season in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and other coastal getaways. There are now fewer tourists to send away.

TOXIC WATERS

North Carolina has about 2,100 industrial-scale pork farms containing more than nine million hogs. Florence’s heavy rains could cause an environmental disaster if waste from manure pits, coal ash dumps and other industrial sites wash into homes or threaten drinking water supplies.

When Hurricane Floyd made landfall near Cape Fear in 1999 as a Category 2 storm, bloated carcasses of hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens and other drowned livestock bobbed in a stinking soup of faecal matter, pesticides, fertiliser and fuel so toxic that fish flopped helplessly to escape it.

GULLAH-GEECHEE

John Brown prepares for the storm at his home on St Helena Island
John Brown prepares for the storm at his home on St Helena Island (Russ Bynum/AP)

Elder relatives carry as much weight as meteorologists in a tight-knit community of slave descendants on the South Carolina coast. St Helena Island, near the South Carolina-Georgia border, is used to riding out big storms — from one that killed an estimated 2,000 people in 1893 to Tropical Storm Irma last year.

But barber Josh Dais says the island’s 5,000 residents are trying to decide whether to flee ahead of Hurricane Florence. He says: “If Mama and Grandma are going, then a lot of people are leaving.”

RACETRACK CAMPING

Some Florence evacuees are steering towards Bristol Motor Speedway near the Tennessee-Virginia border and Atlanta Motor Speedway, where campgrounds have been opened for people fleeing the storm.

At least two dozen utility trucks gathered near Charlotte Motor Speedway to prepare to move in and start restoring power as soon as conditions are safe.

VALUABLE POSSESSIONS

What would you take if a major hurricane was threatening to inundate or pull apart your home? One North Carolina woman packed flowers to leave on her son’s grave. Evacuees also loaded their vehicles with extra fuel cans, their pets — mostly dogs, and one cockatoo — coolers filled with sandwich meat, family photographs and blankets.

Traffic backs up on a key route
Traffic backs up on a key route (Jonathon Gruenke/Daily Press/AP)

The shopping list for people who have decided to ride out the storm at home: plywood to board up their windows, sandbags, bilge pumps, generators, rubbish bags, crisps, bottled water and wine.