CHARLESTON, S.C. — After its deadly rampage across the Bahamas and brush of Florida, Hurricane Dorian pounded the Carolinas on Thursday as its center closed in on Cape Fear, N.C., sowing fear and worry from the elegant streets of downtown Charleston to the jigsaw puzzle that is North Carolina’s barrier islands.

Though thousands of residents had evacuated the region at the urging of government officials, many others stayed behind, where they endured tornadoes, power failures, flooding and tree-toppling winds. In low-lying Charleston, the water was knee-high in some streets, though by late afternoon, Shannon F. Scaff, the director of emergency management, said that the city of 136,000 had largely avoided major catastrophe.

“We got hit more than we have in other storms, but anybody familiar with Charleston would probably agree that we got very fortunate yet again,” Mr. Scaff said.

[For the latest updates on Friday, read our Hurricane Dorian live briefing here.]

The hurricane was downgraded to Category 1 early Friday. But farther north, where the hurricane’s bands were just starting to be felt, there was lingering concern over winds that reached 90 miles per hour, as well as a kind of war-weariness for a region still rebuilding from last year’s Hurricane Florence.