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A newly strengthened Hurricane Dorian has begun battering South Carolina, where Charleston was already experiencing flooding as the Category 3 storm churned up the coast some 80 miles south-southeast of the city by early Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Dorian, packing sustained winds of 115 mph, is expected to unleash storm surges reaching 6 feet, as well as up to 20 inches of rain as it travels at 8 mph on a path toward North Carolina into Friday, officials said.

The hurricane’s eyewall is forecast to pass less than 40 miles from the Charleston County coast, National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Rowley told CNN.

More than 1 million residents in parts of the Carolinas are under mandatory evacuation orders, forecasters said.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, and the NHC warned of “life-threatening storm surge and dangerous winds, regardless of the exact track of Dorian’s center.”

Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said he wanted the city to be a “ghost town” as Dorian blows through.

“Just stay put for another six or eight hours until this passes, and then we’re going to clean up and get back to normal quickly,” Tecklenburg told CNN.

On Thursday morning, over 167,000 customers were without power in South Carolina and Georgia, the bulk of whom were in South Carolina, where 154,000 customers were in the dark.

In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp issued a mandatory evacuation order for six counties.

“We need people to evacuate,” he told CNN. “This is not a storm to mess with.”

In Georgia, where more than 9,100 customers were without power Thursday, a state of emergency was declared for 21 counties.

The Navy ordered ships at its base in Norfolk, Virginia, to head out to sea for safety, and warplanes at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia, were being moved inland.

The commander of the Navy Region Mid-Atlantic issued an emergency evacuation order for military personnel and their dependents in five North Carolina counties.

Peter Gaynor, acting administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said 4,000 federal responders, 6,000 National Guard members and 40,000 utility workers were on standby.

“We are ready to go,” Gaynor said. “We’ll follow Dorian up the coast until it is not a threat.”

With Post wires