Wrightsville Beach, N.C. ? Vulnerable islands were evacuated and mainland schools were closed Tuesday as Ophelia strengthened to a hurricane and wobbled closer to land with a threat of flooding rain.

The National Hurricane Center upgraded the storm’s status Tuesday evening, saying maximum sustained winds had reached 75 mph, with higher gusts. The center said further strengthening was possible.

“I don’t really want to mess with it,” Bruce McIlvaine of Logan Township, N.J., said as he packed to leave the Outer Banks’ Hatteras Island before his vacation ended. “You’re on a spit of land a dozen miles into the ocean.”

Others were nonchalant, following the lead of many longtime residents who were staying put.

Brenda and Rich Hooser, who moved to Nags Head from Winston-Salem three weeks ago, strolled hand-in-hand through the surf.

“All the locals – none of them leave,” Rich Hooser said. “If it’s not over 125 (mph), they don’t go anywhere.”

After taunting coastal residents for days, the storm appeared ready to move ashore, as heavy rain battered South Carolina’s northern coast and the beaches of southeastern North Carolina.

In Carolina Beach, south of Wrightsville Beach, officials reported a foot of water on one road due to heavy wind and a high tide.

Unlike Hurricane Katrina’s devastating charge at the Gulf Coast, the week-old Ophelia had been following a meandering path, making predictions of its landfall difficult. The hurricane center’s forecasts showed it running along the coast, then veering through Pamlico Sound, crossing the Outer Banks and heading back out to sea.

A line of vehicles drives north from Rodanthe, N.C., as tourists and residents begin evacuating Hatteras Island on Tuesday in preparation for Tropical Storm Ophelia. A mandatory evacuation is underway on the fragile barrier island.

Its slow movement meant heavy rain could linger over land, possibly causing serious flooding. The hurricane center said up to 15 inches of rain was possible in eastern North Carolina.

At least six North Carolina counties ordered mandatory evacuations of some areas and eight others had voluntary evacuations.

Along the exposed Outer Banks chain, all residents and visitors were ordered to evacuate Hatteras Island on Tuesday, visitors had been ordered off Ocracoke Island and the National Park Service closed the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills.

Schools were closed in several coastal counties in both North and South Carolina, while classes were canceled at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington and East Carolina University in Greenville.

The storm’s likely path across Pamlico Sound and the Outer Banks would mean the biggest flooding threat would come not from the Atlantic Ocean but from the sounds – the bodies of water between the mainland and the barrier islands, said Jonathan Hobbs, a spokesman for the Dare County Joint Information Center.