The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rising floodwaters paralyze region
Florence has killed at least 17; 1 million power failures reported.
WILMINGTON, N.C. — North Carolina confronted a spiraling statewide crisis Sunday as Florence slowly ravaged the region, flooding cities, sending thousands into shelters and endangering communities from the coastline to the rugged mountains.
Sunday, it seemed, was when the storm system that had stalked the state for days — first as a hurri- cane, then as a tropical storm and eventually as a tropical depression — showed its full power with staggering scope.
The perils stretched across
North Carolina’s more than 500-mile width.
Weary, drenched coastal cities were scenes of daring rescues. Waterways swelled throughout eastern and central North Carolina, testing dams and menacing towns with floodwaters that had no place to go but up. Inch after inch of rain fell on Charlotte, the state’s largest city, and its suburbs, and communities in North Carolina’s western mountains feared landslides.
At least one variation of a National Weather Service alert, from a flash flood warning to a hazardous weather outlook, was in effect in all 100 of North Carolina’s counties for Sunday or the days ahead.
The storm has “never been more dangerous than it is right now,” Gov. Roy Cooper said at a news conference. “Wherever you live in North Carolina, be alert for sudden flooding.” The governor noted that about 15,000 people are in shelters across the state.
South Carolina, where about 4,000 people were in shelters, faced its own related set of troubles, with its death toll rising and the storm’s rains and winds still unspooling havoc.
In places like Wilmington, North Carolina, which has been battered for days, exhausted rescuers who spent all night plucking about 220 stranded people from the floodwaters tried to gather strength in a church parking lot Sunday, knowing there were many more missions to come.
“The water got so high, I couldn’t believe it,” said Brett Neely, a firefighter from Pennsylvania who estimated that he had helped rescue 40 to 50 people, from a newborn to a 75-year-old.
Donald Lewis, a volunteer who located people in need by posting his personal cellphone number on an internet yard sale message board, said he could not keep up with all of the calls. With the Cape Fear River’s expected crest still hours away, the volunteer rescuers knew things would probably get worse.
The system that was once Hurricane Florence was downgraded to a tropical depression, with maximum sustained winds of 35 mph.
The storm has killed at least 17 people so far. The deaths include a mother and child who died after a tree fell on their home in Wilmington; Amber Dawn Lee, 61, a mother of two who was driving in Union County, South Carolina, when her vehicle hit a tree in the road; and three people in Duplin County, North Carolina, who died because of flash flooding on the roadways.
Rainfall in North Carolina has already broken a state record, according to preliminary reports from the National Weather Service. And Sunday, Cooper said the system’s strongest bands were still pouring 2 or 3 inches of rain per hour into some areas.
Although more than 1 million power failures have been reported in the region, according to the Department of Energy, utility companies and state authorities reported some successes in restoring service Sunday.
Most of the outages were in North Carolina, where residents had known they were likely to face days of flooding from engorged rivers long after the immediate drama of flying shingles and TV newscasters staggering in the squalls came to an end.
“We still continue to see heavy rainfalls in both states,” said Jeff Byard, associate administrator for response and recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “We want citizens to follow state and local warnings. There is a tremendous amount of flooding.”
Authorities at all levels of government set into motion a vast response plan that included thousands of National Guard soldiers and scores of aircraft. The Army Corps of Engineers was engaging in a $6.1 million response, monitoring federal dams, helping with rescues, and deploying pumps and portable barriers. Specialized search-and-rescue teams were deployed throughout the region.
Yet the potential crisis points were widespread Sunday, and emergency workers could only try to keep up in places like Fayetteville, one of North Carolina’s largest cities, where torrential rains fell through the morning.
Traffic lights were out, and while electric signs flickered here and there, gas stations and restaurants were dark.
Thousands of people in the Fayetteville area were being evacuated from along a river, and local authorities predicted that at least 2,800 homes would be emptied by Sunday afternoon.
“The loss of life is very, very possible,” said Mayor Mitch Colvin of Fayetteville, a community adjacent to Fort Bragg, a vast Army installation. “Please adhere to this. This is not at talking point, this is not a script.”
As residents fled and line workers tried to restore power, the utility company Duke Energy said it was coping with a coal ash spill, apparently caused by the storm’s rains, at a facility in Wilmington. The company said the spill displaced 2,000 cubic yards of the hazardous material, or enough to fill about two-thirds of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Although North Carolina faced more widespread danger Sunday, emergency workers in South Carolina were still carrying out hundreds of rescues.
Just before 4 a.m., Anthony Britt, one of the fire chiefs in Dillon County, received a call from the Latta town administrator, who warned the town’s emergency operation center flooded and had to be evacuated.
Britt assembled his mostly volunteer staff of firefighters just after 4:30 a.m. and put together three crews. By noon, he estimated they had rescued about 200 people.
“As far as tree damage, it’s not as bad as Hurricane Matthew,” he said. “But the water level is much worse.”