Carolinas’ flood fears rise as record rain falls
WILMINGTON: Deadly Hurricane Florence drenched North Carolina with more downpours yesterday, cutting off the coastal city of Wilmington, damaging tens of thousands of homes and threatening worse flooding as rivers fill to bursting point.
The death toll rose to at least 17.
Florence has dumped up to 1000mm of rain on parts of North Carolina since Friday, and continued to produce widespread heavy rain over much of North Carolina and eastern South Carolina, the National Weather Service said.
‘‘The storm has never been more dangerous than it is right now,’’ North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told a news conference.
More than 900 people were rescued from rising floodwater and 15,000 remained in shelters in the state, Cooper said.
Many of those rescues took place on swift boats in Wilming ton, a historic coastal city of about 117,000 people on a peninsula between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean.
Rescue crews negotiated downed trees and power lines to reach stranded residents, Mayor Bill Saffo told WHQR radio.
‘‘There are no roads . . . that are leading into Wilmington that are passable because of the flooding that is taking place now inland,’’ Saffo said.
Officials urged those who had evacuated to stay away.
In Leland, a lowlying city north of Wilmington, homes and businesses were engulfed by water that rose up to 3m over Highway 17, submerging stop signs in what local people called unprecedented flooding.
The sheriff’s department and volunteers, including locals and some who came from Texas, rescued stranded residents by boat, extracting families, infants, the elderly and pets.
Petrol stations were abandoned and fallen trees made many roads impassable. The sound of generators could be heard throughout the city, and not expected to dim soon as crews work to restore power.
More than 641,000 homes and businesses were without electricity in North and South Carolina and surrounding states, down from a peak of nearly 1 million.
Florence set a record in the state for rain from a hurricane, surpassing the previous one of 61cm set by Hurricane Floyd, which killed 56 people in 1999, said Bryce Link, a meteorologist with private forecasting service DTN Marine Weather.
The storm killed at least 11 people in North Carolina, including a mother and child killed by a falling tree, state officials said. Six people died in South Carolina, including four in car accidents and two from carbon monoxide from a portable generator.
South Carolina’s governor urged anyone in a floodprone area to evacuate.
‘‘Those rivers in North Carolina that have received heavy rainfall are coming our way,’’ Governor Henry McMaster said during a news conference.
‘‘They have not even begun [to crest]. But they will.
‘‘And the question is how high will the water be, and we do not know.’’