Residents of the barrier islands along the North Carolina coast witnessed the first signs of Hurricane Sandy’s wrath in the U.S. on Sunday. The super-storm forced millions along the Eastern Seaboard to prepare and thousands more to evacuate coastal areas as the Category 1 hurricane appeared poised to make landfall late Sunday. The storm is expected to stretch across a more than 700-mile area reaching from North Carolina to Connecticut and may combine with a cold front moving in from the west.