NAGS HEAD, N.C. &#8212 Tropical Storm Gabrielle swirled Saturday toward North Carolina’s Outer Banks, but its promised rain and high winds weren’t enough to scare residents and vacationers away from the beach.

“When people hear about tropical storms, they assume houses are going to fall in the ocean,” said Margot Jolly, a lifeguard with Nags Heads Ocean Rescue. “They shouldn’t overreact like that. Just relax, stay inside, and have a little hurricane party.”

Forecasters said the storm was likely to strengthen before brushing the Outer Banks on Sunday afternoon. Rain from the storm’s outer bands had started falling in the area late Saturday night, but there were no indications Gabrielle would become a hurricane before turning north and curving back out into the Atlantic.

“It’s not going to be one that will go down in the annals of the record books,” said Michael Caropolo, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Wilmington.

Around 11 p.m. Saturday, Gabrielle was centered about 115 miles southeast of Cape Lookout, N.C.. The storm had top sustained winds of about 40 mph, down slightly from earlier in the day.

The first showers from Gabrielle were expected to reach the coastline by Saturday night. Caropolo said the latest forecast called for the storm’s center to sneak past Cape Hatteras – the easternmost point on the Outer Banks – at about 8 p.m. Sunday without actually making landfall on the East Coast.

Caropolo said the storm’s greatest danger will be rough seas, reaching 8 to 11 feet on the ocean side of the central Outer Banks, and rip currents along the shore.