Hurricane Earl packed winds near 125 mph as it blew toward North Carolina on Thursday, putting the Eastern Seaboard all the way to Canada on alert for a Labor Day weekend pounding by waves, gales, and rain.

With winds expected to whip up in North Carolina’s Outer Banks by the evening, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate said residents and tourists could no longer afford to wait on the next forecast to see how close the eye of the storm might get.

Earl weakened slightly as it moved toward the coast Thursday, but it was still a dangerous Category 3 storm. The director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Bill Read, said hurricane winds were spread 90 miles from the eye and widening.

The eye of the storm will likely remain about 30 to 75 miles east of the Outer Banks. The western edge of the eyewall could impact Cape Hatteras with huge waves, beach erosion and maybe some property damage. There will be a similar close approach later this week for the eastern tip of Long Island, Rhode Island, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket.

“This is the strongest hurricane to threaten the northeast and New England since Hurricane Bob in 1991,” said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center. “They don’t get storms this powerful very often.”

Forecasters said Earl could pass within 30 miles of Nantucket Island, Mass., bringing wind gusts up to 100 mph.

Three North Carolina counties have issued evacuation orders, but Gov. Beverly Perdue said emergency officials couldn’t make residents leave their homes. She warned emergency crews often couldn’t immediately reach stranded coastal homeowners after a storm.

The North Carolina National Guard is deploying 80 troops to help and President Barack Obama declared an emergency in the state. The declaration authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA to coordinate all disaster relief efforts.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.