Now not the wind, but dangerous floods
Deaths reported as Florence begins to slow over North Carolina
WILMINGTON, N.C. — Blowing ashore with howling 90 mph winds, Hurricane Florence splintered buildings, trapped hundreds of people and swamped entire communities along the Carolina coast Friday in what could be just the opening act in a watery, two-part, slow-motion disaster. At least five people were killed.
Forecasters warned that drenching rains of 1 to 31⁄ feet as the storm crawls westward across North Carolina and South Carolina could trigger epic flooding inland over the next few days.
As 400-mile-wide Florence pounded the coast with torrential downpours and surging seas, rescue crews used boats to reach more than 360 people besieged by rising waters in New Bern. More than 60 people had to be rescued in another town as a motel collapsed at the height of the storm’s fury.
Florence flattened trees, crumbled roads and knocked out power to more than three-quarters of a
Storm forces wedding to move. NEWS PG 2
State dispatches National Guard helicopter rescue team. NEWS PG 11
million homes and businesses, and the assault wasn’t anywhere close to being over, with the siege in the Carolinas expected to last all weekend.
“It’s an uninvited brute who doesn’t want to leave,” said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper.
The hurricane was “wreaking havoc” and could wipe out entire communities as it makes its “violent grind across our state for days,” Cooper said. He said parts of North Carolina had seen storm surges — the bulge of seawater pushed ashore by the hurricane — as high as 10 feet.
A mother and baby were killed when a tree fell on a house, according to a tweet from Wilmington police. Also, a 77-year-old man was apparently knocked down by the wind and died after going out to check on his hunting dogs, Lenoir County authorities said, and the governor’s office said a man was electrocuted while trying to connect extension cords in the rain. A woman in Hampstead, in Pender County, died of an apparent heart attack after emergency crews could not clear debris to get to her, the Raleigh News & Observer reported.
Shaken after seeing waves crashing on the Neuse River just outside his house in New Bern, restaurant owner and hurricane veteran Tom Ballance wished he had evacuated.
“I feel like the dumbest human being who ever walked the face of the earth,” he said.
After reaching a Category 4 peak of 140 mph earlier in the week, Florence made The Neuse River floods the waterfront in New Bern, N.C. Though Florence has been downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm, its potential to cause great damage remains high as it drenches the Carolinas with torrential rains. landfall as a Category1hurricane at 7:15 a.m. Friday at Wrightsville Beach, a few miles east of Wilmington and not far from the South Carolina line. Florence was later downgraded to a tropical storm, its winds weakening to 70 mph as it moved forward at 3 mph about 15 miles north of Myrtle Beach, S.C.
But it was clear that this was really about the water, not the wind. The town of Oriental, N.C., got more than 20 inches just a few hours into the deluge. Other commu- nities got well over a foot.
The flooding soon spread into South Carolina, swamping places like North Myrtle Beach, in a resort area known for its white sands and multitude of golf courses.
For people living inland in the Carolinas, the moment of maximum peril from flash flooding could arrive days later, because it takes time for rainwater to drain into rivers and for those streams to crest.
Preparing for the worst, about 9,700 National Guard troops and civilians were deployed with high-water vehicles, helicopters and boats. Authorities warned, too, of the threat of mudslides and the risk of an environmental disaster from floodwaters washing over industrial waste sites and hog farms.
The National Hurricane Center said Florence will eventually break up over the southern Appalachians and make a right hook to the northeast, its rainy remnants moving into the Mid-Atlantic states and New England by the middle of next week.