Hurricane Florence is the big and scary one: Tourists Leave Now if you can!

The United States is preparing for two upcoming challenges also directly involving the travel and tourism industry of the country. Both the US East Coast and Hawaii are declared disaster areas and are expecting a hurricane and a tropical storm to hit in the next 48 hours.

More than 1 million people flee the anticipated devastation of approaching Hurricane Florence, a Category 4 storm, “is expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane through landfall” on Thursday or Friday and has triggered a hurricane watch for all of North Carolina and part of South Carolina, USA according to the National Hurricane Center.

At the same time on the other end of the United States in the US State of Hawaii tourists and residents are getting ready for a powerful tropical storm expected to hit Maui and Oahu by tomorrow morning.

On the US East Coast National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham told NPR News: “Let me tell you, this one really scares me,It’s one of those situations, you’re going to get heavy rain, catastrophic life-threatening storm surge … and also the wind. Now’s the time to prepare.”

Florence is packing maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, with gusts up to 160 mph — and it’s getting both larger and better-organized, the hurricane center said in its 2 p.m. ET update. Its hurricane-force winds extend up to 60 miles from the storm’s center.

“This storm is a monster. It’s big and it’s vicious,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Tuesday. “The time to hope Hurricane Florence away is gone.”

The Carolinas are a big travel and tourism destination as well. Tourists should leave immediately.

In Hawaii Tropical Storm Oliva is holding at the same strength and track. Tropical Storm Olivia remains on course for the Hawaiian Islands. The National Weather Service expects Tropical Storm Olivia to dump 10 to 15 inches of rain, and possibly up to 20 inches of rain, on parts of Oahu, Maui and Hawaii island late tonight and into Wednesday.

Located about 240 miles east-northeast of Kahului and 380 miles east of Honolulu, Olivia clocked in with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and was headed west at 10 mph at 5 a.m. today, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.