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After spending the day as a tropical storm, Ophelia puffed up again into a hurricane on Tuesday evening and kept a swath of South Carolina coastline within its gaze, though forecasters said it was continuing to chug to the north.

Even so, the storm threatened the Grand Strand with tidal surges, rain and high winds.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami kept the coast, from the South Santee River in South Carolina all the way to Oregon Inlet in North Carolina, under a hurricane warning.

Landfall -- if it occurs -- could come by midday today in North Carolina, most likely running along the fragile Outer Banks then heading out to sea, the Hurricane Center reported Tuesday.

That advisory put the center of Ophelia 110 miles east of Charleston, moving northwest at 4 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph with higher gusts, the threshold for a Category 1 hurricane. It has been packing winds at near that speed during its track up the east coast, even as a tropical storm.

Some local flooding is likely, forecasters said, from rain, tides 5 to 7 feet above normal and a storm surge of 8 to 10 feet at the heads of rivers and bays.

Gov. Mark Sanford's voluntary evacuation order for low-lying coastal areas in Horry and Georgetown counties appeared to draw only a limited response.

Three Red Cross shelters in the two counties held 25 people Tuesday afternoon, said Mark Kruea, spokesman for the City of Myrtle Beach. Sanford imposed the voluntary evacuation at noon Monday.

"We had some cars moving out last night," Kruea said, but there was no mass exodus of tourists.