Hurricane Earl puts East Coast on evacuation alert

Emergency agencies along the Eastern seaboard are preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Earl, which threatens to graze North Carolina and lash coastal Massachusetts with wind and rain before going ashore in Nova Scotia. Evacuations may be needed if the storm doesn't turn north, Craig Fugate, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, said in a conference call Tuesday. While Earl isn't expected to make landfall in the U.S., even a small jog to the west from its current track will have an impact on the mid-Atlantic states, said Bill Read, director of the National Hurricane Center.