North Carolina grapples with floods, outages and endless water
WILMINGTON, N.C. – The water is everywhere – flooding interstates, swamping homes and swelling rivers that keep climbing. The rain stopped falling, but the water remains, endless water clogging up highways, overwhelming gauges meant to measure rivers, stretching out in every direction.
“Even though there’s no substantial rain now in the forecast and the sun may be shining, rivers continue to rise, and we will see more flooding,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, D, said at a briefing Tuesday.
The storm has pummeled North Carolina, leaving people here stranded at home, blocked from traveling, sweltering as they wait for the power to come on and the water to recede.
Florence, the storm that brought the misery, has gone from a hurricane to a tropical depression to a meandering system that dropped rain over the Mid-Atlantic and southern New England on Tuesday, according to the National Weather Service. It left behind deaths in at least three states and carved an arc of destruction that had not fully become clear, though one preliminary analysis said could cost up to $20 billion in property losses.
Cooper said North Carolina had confirmed a 26th death from the storm, pushing the toll to 33 lives lost so far in the Carolinas and Virginia, including at least three children between the ages of three months and one year old.
Florence and its deluge have washed out the normal contours of life across the Tar Heel State. Cooper said more than 1,100 roads re- mained closed on Tuesday, including Interstates 95 and 40 and other major routes. Images of Interstate 95 released by the North Carolina Department of Transportation showed the roadway flooded near Lumberton, North Carolina, and the department said there was still “no safe/reliable route” to or from Wilmington on Tuesday.
More than 340,000 people still lacked electrical power, Cooper said. About 10,000 people had filled the state’s shelters, while many others sought sanctuary with family, friends or hotels. Cooper pleaded for patience, warning North Carolinians that heading onto the roads could pose intense dangers.
“I know it was hard to leave home and it’s even harder to wait and wonder whether you even have a home to go back to,” he said. “But please, for your safety and the ef- fectiveness of our emergency operations, do not try to return home yet.”
William “Brock” Long, the embattled FEMA administrator facing mounting questions about an investigation into his use of government vehicles, traveled to North Carolina this week and met with state officials, who praised him and his agency for their assistance.
“I’m very pleased with where we are but I know we’ve got a long way to go, because this event’s not over,” Long said at the news briefing with Cooper, where he was asked no questions about the investigation dogging him in Washington.
Long said the next two days would be critical, adding: “We realize this is going to be a big recovery mission.” He described North Carolina’s response to the storm so far as a model for other states and said it was important for him to be on the ground to help them “overcome this hit.”
Cooper said he believed there were plans for President Donald Trump to visit on Wednesday, though he noted that such plans can be fluid; the governor also said he would meet with the president during the visit.
The National Weather Service said Tuesday that even with Florence gone, a stretch of the eastern United States spanning hundreds of miles from South Carolina to Virginia was still vulnerable to moderate or major flooding.
“Hurricane Florence will go down as one of the most significant rainfall events on record in the Carolinas, producing widespread, catastrophic flooding,” according to the Weather Service.