UNC-Chapel Hill to open hurricane shelter at the Friday Center

A shelter will open Saturday at UNC-Chapel Hill for people seeking refuge from Hurricane Florence and who were in other shelters that have closed.

Gov. Roy Cooper announced the arrangement Friday afternoon.

“UNC-Chapel Hill has agreed to operate a mass shelter on its campus,” he said.

State Emergency Management Director Mike Sprayberry said “several hundred people” will be able to stay there starting Saturday.

The university later announced that the Friday Center for Continuing Education would be used as “a new location for people in existing shelters that have lost power and are now closed.”

A shelter opened at Wake Forest University’s Joel Coliseum earlier this week.

About 20,000 people are in 150 shelters, Cooper said.

Bonner: 919-829-4821; @Lynn_Bonner