Hurricane Erin's higher tides and big waves are battering much of the East Coast, with the huge storm prompting the expansion of tropical storm and coastal flooding advisories Wednesday.

Impacts from Hurricane Erin, a category two hurricane, are expected to begin in North Carolina on Wednesday.

The National Hurricane Center warned that roads in the low-lying barrier islands may become impassable, with waves as high as 20 feet crashing ashore.

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 as the monster storm inched closer to the mid-Atlantic coast.

Hurricane Erin intensified rapidly over the past week and is now hitting the coast of Virginia and North Carolina.

“Even though Erin is expected to remain far offshore, the threat to life from rip currents and high surf along our beaches is very real,” the National Weather Service office in Morehead City, North C...