"Everyone stay indoors!" Charleston Mayor

The Mayor of Charleston, South Carolina John Tecklenburg says he has crews standing by to address power outages and downed trees, but like everyone else, they are remaining indoors until Hurricane Dorian passes by.

More than 239,000 homes and businesses in the U.S. Southeast were without power on Thursday as Hurricane Dorian lashed the Carolina coast, according to local electric companies.

Dorian, which smashed into the Bahamas earlier this week, was located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east-southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) on Thursday and was headed north-northeast at about 8 miles per hour (13 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was packing 110 mph winds.

In South Carolina, Dominion Energy Inc said its crews were conducting damage assessments as the storm pummeled its service area. Dominion's outages in the state rose to 156,300 by midday Thursday from 131,900 earlier in the day.

Despite warnings to stay out of the rough weather, some waded out to see the damage to their neighborhoods. In Myrtle Beach, police confirm a red Jeep got stuck on the beach overnight after the driver decided to take his car on the beach to see how far they could go.