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Powerful Hurricane Isabel steamed across the Atlantic Ocean toward the United States on Sunday and forecasters said it would almost certainly hit the Eastern Seaboard late this week.

"We feel pretty confident that someone will (get hit)," said Eric Blake, a specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "We're forecasting a major hurricane for the United States East Coast."

Forecasters said the storm could strike the U.S. Atlantic Coast anywhere from South Carolina to Maine by Friday, though the most likely track would bring it barreling up the North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland shorelines.

"Even if the center doesn't come near your specific location, the storm is very large and most of the East Coast is probably going to feel this in some way, especially in the mid-Atlantic states," Blake said.

Isabel had sustained winds of 155 mph, making it a strong Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. Such storms can destroy coastal homes, rip off roofs, batter the shoreline with a 15-foot storm surge and cause heavy inland flooding.

A tiny boost in strength could make it a rare Category 5 hurricane capable of inflicting widespread destruction -- only three have hit the U.S. mainland in the last century, the Hurricane Center said.

At 11 a.m. EDT, the eye of the hurricane was about 370 miles east-northeast of the Turks and Caicos Islands south of the Bahamas, at latitude 23.7 north and longitude 66.3 west, forecasters said. It was moving west-northwest at 12 mph.

Isabel missed the small islands of the northeastern Caribbean but was churning up dangerous swells that could reach the Bahamas and the southeastern U.S. coast in the next few days, forecasters said.

Isabel's strength fluctuated slightly. It reached Category 5 strength on Saturday, the first in the Atlantic-Caribbean region to hit that mark since 1998, when Hurricane Mitch killed more than 9,000 people in Central America.

Only three Category 5 storms have hit the United States since 1900, according to hurricane center records. The unnamed storm of 1935 killed several hundred people in the Florida Keys. Camille hit Mississippi in 1969, killing 256 people. And Andrew, which became the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history, killed 23 people and did more than $25 billion in damage when it hit the Miami area in 1992.

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