Rescuers scramble as Florence strikes
CATASTROPHIC FLOODING EXPECTED ACROSS CAROLINAS
Hurricane Florence lumbered ashore in North Carolina with howling 144 km/h winds and terrifying storm surge early yesterday, splintering buildings and knocking out power to a halfmillion homes and businesses as it settled in for what could be a long and extraordinarily destructive drenching.
A mother and infant in North Carolina died after a tree fell on their home – the first two fatalities of the storm.
More than 60 people had to be pulled from a collapsing motel at the height of the storm. Hundreds more had to be rescued elsewhere from rising waters, and others could only hold out hope someone would come for them.
“WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU,” the city of New Bern tweeted around 2am. “You may need to move up to the second
storey, or to your attic, but WE ARE COMING TO GET YOU.”
More ominously, forecasters said the onslaught on the coast would last for hours and hours because Florence had come almost to a dead halt at just 6 km/h as of midday.
Florence made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at 7.15 am at Wrightsville Beach, a few kilometres east of Wilmington, not far from the South Carolina line, coming ashore along a mostly boarded-up, emptiedout stretch of coastline.
Its storm surge and the prospect of 1 to 3 feet of rain were considered a bigger threat than its winds, which dropped off from an alarming 225 km/h — Category 4 — earlier in the week. Forecasters said catastrophic freshwater flooding is expected well inland over the next few days as Florence crawls westward across the Carolinas all weekend. The area is expected to get about as much rain in three days as Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd dropped in two weeks in 1999.
The big slosh has begun, and the consequences could be disastrous. Hurricane Florence’s leading edge battered the Carolina coast on Thursday, bending trees and shooting frothy seawater over streets on the Outer Banks, as the hulking storm closed in with 105mph (165kph) winds for a drenching siege that could last through today and tomorrow.
Forecasters said conditions will only get more lethal as the storm was set to push ashore yesterday near the North Carolina-South Carolina line and make its way slowly inland. Its surge of ocean water could cover all but a sliver of the Carolina coast under as much as 13 feet, and days of downpours could unload more than three feet of rain, touching off severe flooding.
Florence’s winds weakened as it drew closer to land, dropping from a peak of 225kph earlier in the week, and the hurricane was downgraded from a terrifying Category 4 to Category 2.
But North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned: “Don’t relax, don’t get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality.”
Forecasters warned that given the storm’s size and sluggish track, it could cause epic damage akin to what the Houston area had seen during Hurricane Harvey just over a year ago, with floodwaters swamping homes and businesses and washing over industrial waste sites and hog-manure ponds.
“It truly is really about the whole size of this storm,” National Hurricane Centre Director Ken Graham said. “The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact — and we have that.”
The hurricane was seen as a major test for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which was heavily criticised as sluggish and unprepared for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year.
Schools, businesses closed
As Florence drew near, United States President Donald Trump tweeted that Fema and first responders are “supplied and ready”, and he disputed the official conclusion that nearly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico, claiming the figure was a Democratic plot to make him look bad.
Schools and businesses closed as far south as Georgia, airlines cancelled about 1,200 flights and counting, and coastal towns in the Carolinas were largely emptied out.
As of 2pm (local time on Thursday), Florence was centred about 180 kilometres southeast of Wilmington, its forward movement slowed to 17kph. Hurricane-force winds extended 130 kilometres from its centre, and tropical-storm-force winds up to 315 kilometres.
Florence’s weakening as it neared the coast created tension between some who left home and authorities who worried that the storm could still be deadly
Ken Graham | National Hurricane Centre director It truly is really about the whole size of this storm. The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact — and we have that.”