Deadly Florence drenches Carolinas
At least four people killed; severe inland flood threat emerges as storm digs in
MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina — A severe inland flood threat was emerging early today as remnants of Hurricane Florence pounded the Carolinas with nearly nonstop rain for a second day since the once major hurricane howled ashore.
At least four people have died since Florence crashed into the coast Friday and nearly stalled. Though forecasters later downgraded Florence to a tropical storm, the monster system is barely moving over the Carolinas and could dump drenching rains of up to one metre. That, in turn, could trigger epic flooding well inland.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called Florence the “uninvited brute” that could wipe out entire communities.
This morning, the storm was about 645 kilometres wide. Power outages are widespread, and rescue crews have used boats to reach hundreds besieged by the rising waters.
On Friday, as it blew ashore with howling winds of 155 kilometres an hour, Florence splintered buildings, trapped hundreds of people and swamped entire communities along the Carolina coast.
Forecasters warned of drenching rains as the hurricane-turned-tropical storm crawls westward across North and South Carolina.
As Florence pounded away at the coast with torrential downpours and surging seas, rescue crews used boats to reach more than 360 people besieged by rising waters in New Bern, while many of their neighbours awaited help. More than 60 people had to be rescued in another town as a cinderblock motel collapsed at the height of the storm’s fury.
Florence flattened trees, crumbled roads and the assault wasn’t anywhere close to being over, with the siege in the Carolinas expected to last all weekend. The storm knocked out power to more than 890,000 homes and businesses, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks the U.S. electrical grid.
“The fact is this storm is deadly and we know we are days away from an ending,” Cooper said. Parts of North Carolina had seen storm surges — the bulge of seawater pushed ashore by the hurricane — as high as three metres, he said.
A mother and baby were killed when a tree fell on a house, according to a tweet from Wilmington police. Also, a 77-year-old man was apparently knocked down by the wind and died after going out to check on his hunting dogs, Lenoir County authorities said. The governor’s office said another man was electrocuted while trying to connect extension cords in the rain.
Shaken after seeing waves crashing on the Neuse River just outside his house in New Bern, restaurant owner and hurricane veteran Tom Ballance wished he had left.
“I feel like the dumbest human being who ever walked the face of the Earth,” he said.
After reaching a terrifying Category 4 peak of 225 km/h earlier in the week, Florence made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at 7:15 a.m. at Wrightsville Beach, a few kilometres east of Wilmington and not far from the South Carolina line. It came ashore along a mostly boarded-up, emptied-out stretch of coastline.
By Friday evening, Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm, its winds weakened to about 110 km/h as it moved forward at six km/h about 25 kilometres north of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
But it was clear that this was really about the water, not the wind. Several places already had more 40 centimetres of rain, and Oriental, North Carolina, got more than 50 cm in just a few hours.
Florence’s forward movement during the day slowed to a near-standstill — sometimes it was going no faster than a human can walk — and that enabled it to pile on the rain.
The flooding soon spread into South Carolina, swamping places such as North Myrtle Beach, a resort area known for its white sands and multitude of golf courses.
For people living inland in the Carolinas, the moment of maximum peril from flash flooding could arrive days later, because it takes time for rainwater to drain into rivers and for those streams to crest.
Preparing for the worst, about 9,700 National Guard troops and civilians were deployed with high-water vehicles, helicopters and boats.
Authorities warned, too, of the threat of mudslides and the risk of an environmental disaster from floodwaters washing over industrial waste sites and hog farms.
Florence was seen as a major test for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was heavily criticized as slow and unprepared last year for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
The National Hurricane Center said Florence will eventually break up over the southern Appalachians and make a right hook to the northeast, its rainy remnants moving into the mid-Atlantic states and New England by the middle of next week.