The east coast of the United States on alert today as Hurricane Ophelia, a tropical storm that has lingered offshore since the weekend, was predicted to make landfall within 24 hours.

Mindful of failures after Hurricane Katrina, which led to devastation and claimed 650 lives on the Gulf Coast, state authorities in North and South Carolina were taking no chances, enforcing mandatory evacuation orders of low-lying areas and islands along the coast.

Although Ophelia is rated at category one on the five-point Saffir-Simpson scale, compared with the scale four gusts that battered cities 600 miles south in Louisiana on August 31, the 75mph winds are expected to strengthen slightly as it approaches the shore.

The National Hurricane Centre has predicted that up to 15ins (37cm) of rain will be dumped on parts of the coast, producing storm surges causing waves of up to three metres.

However, reports suggested that despite the official orders to evacuate, many storm-hardened residents were shrugging off the threat as heavy rains began to fall.

At noon today, Ophelia’s centre was 100 miles east of Charleston, heading north towards Wilmington at around 3mph. A hurricane warning extended about 275 miles from the South Santee River in South Carolina to Oregon Inlet at Pamlico Sound in North Carolina.

Unlike Katrina, which made a direct charge at New Orleans two weeks ago, Ophelia has dithered since forming off the Florida coast last week making exact landfall predictions difficult.

"We’re just having a grand time," said Diane Komorowski, a tourist from Philadelphia, as she walked through the choppy surf on the Outer Banks, North Carolina, with her husband. "They keep saying, ’It’s coming' - yet every day, it’s great here," she said.

State and local officials, determined not to be caught off-guard, are taking a less laissez-faire attitude and have blanketed the coast with a mixture of voluntary and mandatory evacuations, closing schools and opening shelters.

Nearly 100 people have checked into a shelter in a school near central Wilmington.

Along the exposed Outer Banks, all residents and visitors have been ordered to evacuate Hatteras Island. Ocracoke Island and the Cape Hatteras lighthouse have been closed. Today, a bridge in New Hanover County was closed because of 40mph gusts.

A surfer was missing along the South Carolina coast, with the search suspended because of rough seas.

Mike Easley, the North Carolina Governor, has warned that coastal residents should be prepared to go without power for two to three days.

"The beaches we expect to take a real beating," he said.

"The bottom line is we’re definitely going to get flooding, not just on the coast but in low-lying areas as the rivers swell from the storm surge itself."

Since June 1, there have been seven major Atlantic storms. The six-month hurricane season still has until the end of November to run, and 2005 is touted by scientists to be one of the most severe on record.

Ophelia is the 15th named storm and seventh hurricane in this year’s busy Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends Nov. 30.

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