Hurricane Ophelia's turn Friday has Beaufort County and state officials preparing for evacuations that could start as early as today with a voluntary evacuation.

State and local officials are to meet at 9 a.m. today to decide whether an evacuation order should be issued as the storm threatens South Carolina.

William Winn, director of the Beaufort County Emergency Management Department, said Friday night that a voluntary evacuation could begin today and a mandatory evacuation Sunday.

Forecasts Friday night had Ophelia making landfall in the Lowcountry on Tuesday morning, with the center of the storm striking somewhere between Beaufort and Charleston, said Steve Wilkinson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston.

At 11 p.m. Friday, Ophelia was centered about 250 miles east-northeast of Daytona Beach and about 240 miles southeast of Charleston.

The Category 1 storm is moving north near 9 mph and is expected to continue that track through today. Maximum sustained winds had increased to near 75 mph and the storm was expected to strengthen gradually, according to the National Hurricane Center.

But Wilkinson stressed that Ophelia, which has hovered about off the Atlantic coast of Florida the past couple days, has been an erratic storm, and the forecast subject to change.

With that in mind, officials from across the state met most of the day Friday and decided to see whether the forecast does indeed change.

"Hopefully for the better," said Hilton Head Island Mayor Tom Peeples. "Everybody needs to be calm."

If a Category 1 hurricane hits Beaufort County, a mandatory evacuation would be ordered for parts of the county, including Hilton Head Island.

But if the storm is upgraded to a Category 2, almost all of the county would be under a mandatory evacuation, Beaufort County Council Chairman Weston Newton said Friday.

Should the call to evacuate be given, residents will be notified through a variety of mediums, said Steve Fields, deputy director of the Beaufort County Emergency Management Department.

The department will activate traffic message boards and highway advisory radios, override local cable and contact every media outlet, Fields said.

Furthermore, the county Web site -- http://www.bcgov.net/ -- will be updated constantly. Click the emergency management link under the department queue to access the site.

Also, the department will activate its call center, which will answer any questions about evacuation routes or other related info. That number is 470-3100.

Ophelia was classified as a minimal Category 1 hurricane Friday night. Even so, Category 1 hurricanes can inflict serious damage, Wilkinson said.

"Roofs probably wouldn't be knocked off," he said, "but there would be tree damage, minor structural damage, windows blown out, shingles lifted off ... it has to be taken seriously."

Wilkinson said Ophelia, as of Friday night, had 75 mph winds and is forecast to have 95 mph winds when it makes landfall Tuesday. Wind speed any higher than that would bump the storm up to a Category 2 hurricane, he said.

Residents only will have a couple days if voluntary evacuations begin today.

"It's a shorter fuse than we'd like to have," Peeples said. "Everyone just needs to be prepared to implement their evacuations plans."