RELATED: Get the latest track of Irene with the 6abc.com Hurricane Tracker.
There are some 800,000 people in Cape May County. A voluntary evacuation is in effect right now for Cape May County and other coast areas.
Click here to see a complete set of evacuation route maps for the New Jersey coast. "Do not try to ride it out. It is not the smart thing to do," Gov. Chris Christie told a news conference Thursday at the State Police Regional Operations Intelligence Center.
He also told people who had been planning to visit the shore this weekend to stay home: "Do not go," he said.
He said it was especially important visitors leave the state's barrier islands. He and his family were leading by example, leaving the governor's summer residence on Island Beach State Park on Thursday.
Irene, moving through the Bahamas on Thursday and heading toward the North Carolina coast, could deliver rain and winds to the populous Northeast over the weekend, and bear down on New Jersey on Sunday. Rain brought Thursday by a weather system unrelated to Irene made the flood prospects even worse.
----------
RELATED: How to prepare for Hurricane Irene
