``The centre is so large, and the hurricane-force winds extend outward about 85 miles (136 km). Obviously, it won't take much of a wobble one way or another to get hurricane-force winds along the coast, probably from Morehead City (N.C.), northeastward,'' National Hurricane Centre (NHC) meteorologist Stacy Stewart said.
At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), Dennis was centred about 100 miles south-southwest of Cape Lookout, N.C., at latitude 33.3 North, longitude 77.3 West. The storm was moving north-northeast at 12 mph.
The NHC said a hurricane warning was in effect for the entire North Carolina coast, and the weather system had pushed its influence north into Chesapeake Bay. A gale warning stretched as far as Cape Henlopen, Delaware.
The centre of the storm was expected to pass Cape Fear about 70 miles offshore at about sunrise, keeping hurricane-force winds just offshore there but raising concerns about coastal flooding at high tide around 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), forecasters in Wilmington said.
Dennis was expected to dump four to eight inches (10 to 20 cm) of rain on the southeast North Carolina coast, and forecasters said tornadoes could be spawned as the hurricane's outer rain bands reached the coastline.
Many residents of North Carolina's barrier islands decided to ride out the hurricane despite evacuation orders issued as the storm swept slowly up the coast, officials said.
Emboldened by forecasts that the storm's worst wind and rain would stay well offshore, many year-round residents on barrier islands from Cape Fear to Cape Hatteras were holed up in their beachfront homes overnight, leaving emergency shelters largely empty.
``A lot of people, I'm sure, just stayed in place,'' said Dexter Hayes, an emergency operations centre spokesman for New Hanover County in Wilmington, North Carolina. ``I think people are just relying on the forecasts which say the storm is just going to skirt off the coast.''
Of the nearly 10,000 year-round residents of Wrightsville, Carolina and Kure beaches -- all hard hit by hurricanes Bertha and Fran in September 1996 -- fewer than 150 made their way to two county emergency shelters, he said.
Further up the coast on Topsail Island, Gerry Nunnery settled in with his wife Deborah to ride out the storm overnight in their beachfront condo.
``We've got everything boarded up and we've got the truck in the garage,'' he said. ``If it gets bad, we'll try to leave. It looks to me like we're going to get a lot of rain and water.''
Evacuations were ordered on Sunday for many of North Carolina's barrier islands from Cape Fear north to Cape Hatteras, including Ocracoke Island, where 800 year-round residents and thousands of beach-goers must evacuate by ferry.
``I'm safer here than I am out on (Interstate)-95 with all those trucks,'' said George Warner, owner of Howard's Pub in the village of Ocracoke, who decided to ride out the storm. ``We're prepared for this kind of storm.''
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