Hurricane Florence was downgraded to a Category 1 storm late Thursday night, as it approached shore — but officials warned it was still very dangerous.

Florence had once been a Category 4 storm, but even as a Category 1, it could still packs winds of 90 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

“The people of North Carolina need to understand that Matthew was a Category 1 hurricane when it finally made landfall in the Carolinas, and it caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage,” US Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Fox News Channel, referencing the 2016 storm that ripped through Haiti, the Dominican Republic and the southeast United States.

The outer bands Florence had reached Wilmington, North Carolina, on Thursday night with hurricane-force winds and a life-threatening storm surge, officials said.

The eye could reach the North Carolina coast by Friday morning, the Wilmington Star-News reported.

“The first bands are upon us,” Gov. Roy Cooper said Thursday evening. “We have days more to go.”