Watch Hurricane Florence Batter a Lighthouse 34 Miles Offshore

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A torn American flag is flapping itself to shreds over the waves as Hurricane Florence batters Frying Pan Tower, a former Coast Guard lighthouse located 34 miles (55 kilometers) off the coast of North Carolina. And you can watch it on a livestream (above) posted by the livestreaming YouTube channel Explore Oceans.

The view from Frying Pan (now a privately owned bed-and-breakfast, according to its website) is gray and wet, and the intensity of the storm is visible in the shuddering of the flagpole and other objects in the camera's field of view. The flag began the day whole but shredded between the bottom three stripes and the upper portion as the winds intensified. [Photos of Hurricane Florence]

Another view from the top of the tower is less dramatic but offers a look at skies darkened by Florence's thick cloud cover.

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Florence's approach has also darkened the view beneath the water, with the underwater pillar supporting the old lighthouse periodically appearing and disappearing.

Hurricane Florence is nearing the Southeast today (Sept. 13), and is expected to be a significant, dangerous flooding event. New research suggests the storm was made significantly worse by climate change.

Originally published on Live Science.

Rafi Letzter
Rafi Letzter
Staff Writer
Rafi joined Live Science in 2017. He has a bachelor's degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of journalism. You can find his past science reporting at Inverse, Business Insider and Popular Science, and his past photojournalism on the Flash90 wire service and in the pages of The Courier Post of southern New Jersey.