Baby is tiny vic of huge storm
3-month-old boy among 31 fatalities
A 3-month-old boy was killed when a large tree fell on his mobile home in North Carolina on Sunday as the death toll from Hurricane Florence increased to 31 people.
Little Kade Gill was fatally injured in the town of Dallas. Kade is believed to be the first person in the Charlotte area killed by the storm, according to the State newspaper.
The boy was at his home with other members of his family when the pine tree fell.
"It basically just cut the trailer in half,” Gaston County Police Capt. Jon Leatherwood told the State.
Dad Olen Gill told TV station WBTV that Kade was alive and crying when they got him out of the home, but he later died from his injuries.
"We knew that the winds, everything with the storm ... we were watching the trees in the back that were leaning, but I guess the whole time we were watching the wrong ones," Gill told the station.
The family said they did all they could to protect their son from the storm.
"I even moved the living room around to make sure his swing wasn't in the path of these trees," mother Tammy Gill told the station.
Kade was born five weeks early and battled in the intensive care unit for 10 days, his family told WBTV.
In addition, authorities have found the body of a 1-year-old boy who was swept away by floodwaters in North Carolina after his mother lost her grip on him.
Kaiden Lee-Welch and his mother were on their way to visit relatives when she drove past some barricades on a highway. She later said she believed it was OK because the barricades were off to the side. Her car was swept off the road.
The Union County Sheriff's Office said Monday that Kaiden's body has been found.
About 500,000 people have been left without power, mostly in North Carolina, officials say.
Even though Florence was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical depression, the deadly storm was still dumping rain and had top winds of 30 mph early Monday. Forecasters said it was expected to gradually pick up forward speed and complete a turn toward the Northeast.
"Not only are you going to see more impact across North Carolina ... but we're also anticipating you are about to see a lot of damage going through West Virginia, all the way up to Ohio as the system exits out," FEMA's Brock Long told Fox News on Sunday.
Road access has been cut off to the North Carolina city of Wilmington, officials say.
New Bern, N.C., was also hit very hard. The flooding there is said to have caused at least $600 million dollars in damages, city manager Mark Stephens said Monday.