Navy orders ships out of Hampton Roads ahead of Hurricane Florence

NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) -- The U.S. Navy isn’t taking any chances with Hurricane Florence.

The U.S. Fleet Forces command ordered all Navy ships in the Hampton Roads area to set Sortie Condition Alpha.

A few ships left Naval Station Norfolk on Monday and will continue to do so over the next couple of days.

Some ships will not get underway due to maintenance, but will take precautions to avoid potential damage.

The Navy base is also taking steps to prevent damage.

Crews with the operations department have been working non-stop since Friday, making more than 15,000 bags of sand.

“We started on Friday because we had to get 20,000 sand bags ready. I have a personnel of 35 doing that and they worked around the clock 24 hours up till today. We’ll be doing this tomorrow,” said Ricky Harris, who is the department head.

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