Hurricane Erin has weakened to a Category 1 storm after lashing North Carolina's Outer Banks with rough waves and coastal flooding, and bringing a threat of dangerous waves and potentially deadly rip currents to the East Coast.

Hurricane Erin battered North Carolina's Outer Banks with strong winds and waves that flooded part of the main highway and surged under beachfront homes before slowly moving away.

Two days after Hurricane Erin arrived on the NC coast in the Atlantic, state officials are beginning to reopen roads closed from the storm’s flooding. According to the North Carolina Department of Transportation,