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Hur­ri­cane Erin be­gan pelt­ing part of the Caribbean with rain and wind Mon­day be­fore it’s ex­pect­ed to churn up dan­ger­ous surf and rip cur­rents along the U.S. East Coast this week.

Evac­u­a­tions were be­ing or­dered on a few is­lands along North Car­oli­na’s Out­er Banks even though the storm is un­like­ly to make di­rect land­fall. Au­thor­i­ties warned that some roads could be swamped by waves of 15 feet (4.6 me­ters).

The mon­ster storm in­ten­si­fied to a Cat­e­go­ry 4 with 140 mph (225 kph) max­i­mum sus­tained winds ear­ly Mon­day while it start­ed to lash the Turks and Caicos Is­lands and the south­east Ba­hamas, ac­cord­ing to the U.S. Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter in Mi­a­mi.