HATTERAS, N.C. (AP) — Evacuations began Wednesday on a tiny barrier island off North Carolina as Hurricane Irene strengthened to a major Category 3 storm over the Bahamas on Wednesday with the East Coast in its sights.

Irene's maximum sustained winds increased to near 115 mph (185 kph) with additional strengthening forecast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

The evacuation in North Carolina was a test of whether people in the crosshairs of the first major hurricane along the East Coast in years would heed orders to get out of the way. Irene was churning toward the Bahamas Wednesday, sending tourists scurrying from hotels to catch flights off the island before the airport's expected afternoon closure.

The first ferry to leave Ocracoke Island arrived just before 5:30 a.m. in nearby Hatteras with around a dozen cars on board.

It won't be easy to get thousands of people off Ocracoke Island, which is accessible only by boat. The 16-mile-long barrier island is home to about 800 year-round residents and a tourist population that swells into the thousands when vacationers rent rooms and cottages. Tourists were told to evacuate Wednesday. Island residents were told to get out on Thursday.

It wasn't clear how many people on the first arriving ferry Wednesday morning were tourists, but the first two cars to drive off it had New York and New Jersey plates.

Getting off the next ferry about an hour later was a family that included newlywed Jennifer Zaharek, 23, of Torrington, Conn. She and her husband, Andrew, were married Monday and planned to spend their honeymoon on the island.

"We just got to spend one day on the beach and then we went to bed early to get up for the evacuation," she said.

State workers questioned people who tried taking the ferry to the island and turned a few cars around. In addition to the ferry line to Hatteras, there were two other ferry lines that went to and from the island.

Tommy Hutcherson, owner of the Ocracoke Variety Store, said the evacuation appeared to be going smoothly Wednesday morning. Cars had lined up at gas pumps to top off before leaving.

Federal officials have warned Irene could cause flooding, power outages or worse all along the East Coast as far north as Maine, even if it stays offshore. The projected path has gradually shifted to the east, and Irene could make landfall anywhere from South Carolina to Massachusetts over the weekend.

Speaking Wednesday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Craig Fugate, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said people as far north as New England should be ready for the storm. When asked about concerns preparing the Northeast for a hurricane, which is uncommon in that part of the country, Fugate cited Tuesday's earthquake that rattled the East Coast.

"It's a reminder that we don't always get to pick the next disaster," Fugate said.

In North Carolina, the state-run ferry service off Ocracoke Island would be free during the evacuation, but no reservations were allowed. Boats can carry no more than 50 vehicles at a time.

The island is part of North Carolina's Outer Banks, a roughly 200-mile stretch of fragile barrier islands off the state's coast. Pristine beaches and wild mustangs attract thousands of tourists each year. Aside from Ocracoke, the other islands are accessible by bridges to the mainland and ferries. The limited access can make the evacuation particularly tense.

All the barrier islands have the geographic weakness of jutting out into the Atlantic like the side-view mirror of a car, a location that's frequently been in the path of destructive storms over the decades.

Many remember 1999's Hurricane Floyd, which made landfall as a Category 2 and caused a storm surge that wiped out scores of houses and other properties on the Outer Banks.

As of 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Irene was centered about 285 miles (460 kilometers) southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas and was moving northwest near 12 mph (19 kph).

It had already wrought destruction across the Caribbean, giving a glimpse of what the storm might bring to the Eastern Seaboard. In Puerto Rico, tens of thousands were without power, and one woman died after trying to cross a swollen river in her car. At least hundreds were displaced by flooding in the Dominican Republic, forced to take refuge in schools and churches.

Forecasters warned it could get worse: The storm could strengthen in the next day or so. Irene could crawl up the coast Sunday toward the Northeast region, where residents aren't accustomed to such storms.

It's been more than seven years since a major hurricane, considered a Category 3 with winds of at least 111 mph (179 kph), hit the East Coast. Hurricane Jeanne came ashore on Florida's east coast in 2004.

On North Carolina's mainland, residents who have weathered years of storms took notice. People flocked to gas stations and stores Tuesday to stock up on supplies like gasoline for generators, plywood for boarding up windows, flashlights, batteries and drinking water.

In the coastal city of Wilmington, Tommy Early watched Tuesday as customers came in to his Shell service station to prepare. Irene was the main topic of conversation there.

The last hurricane to hit the U.S. was Ike in 2008. The last Category 3 or higher to hit the Carolinas was Bonnie in 1998, but caused less damage than other memorable hurricanes: Hugo in 1989, Floyd in 1999 and Isabel in 2003.

Though a Category 2, Isabel cut a new inlet through Hatteras Island and killed 33 people.

At Craft American Hardware at Wrightsville Beach, Don Korman said he had placed a big order set to arrive Wednesday: Batteries, lanterns, tarps and shutter supplies.

"People are watching the TV, but they usually come by a few days before," he said. "If it looks like it's coming like this, you can run out of stock really quick."

Korman, though, plans to be ready even for 11th-hour supply trips: the store is ready to plywood its windows and run off generator power until it becomes unsafe or unwise to keep the doors open.

"We won't close until the last minute," he said.

Most locals were heeding the warnings and getting ready for the storm, though few seemed panicked.

"Water, batteries, flashlights and now I'm going to get my grocery shopping done," said Sally Godwin, carrying two large jugs of fresh water out of Korman's store with her. "I live at the beach, and they always evacuate it the day before. I have to make sure all my little stuff's taken care of."

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Associated Press writers Tom Breen in Wilmington, N.C., and Michael Biesecker in Raleigh, N.C., contributed to this report.