Carolinas coastal residents wait, watch as Florence’s fury begins

By Thursday afternoon, all flight operations were halted at a half-dozen airports along the coast of the Carolinas, and scattered cancellations were reported at other airports. Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storm’s aftermath, it said. “Surge-related flooding can vary greatly over short distances”, the advisory said. REUTERS/Carlo AllegriDennis Kernodle talks on the phone during storm preparations of his oceanfront home ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina, U.S. September 12, 2018.

“This rainfall will produce catastrophic flash flooding and prolonged significant river flooding”, the NHC said. Hurricane Florence’s path is hitting many counties where fewer than 5% of people have flood insurance. “He lives in North Carolina”.

“A slow westward to west-southwestward motion is expected Friday night and Saturday”.

“Yes its weakened, but is it strong enough to knock over a tree?” he says of Hurricane Florence.

Measurements by an Air Force Hurricane Hunter plane indicate that maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 110 miles per hour, with higher gusts. His home, built 1 mile inland in 2016, is raised 25 feet off the ground and is built to withstand 140-mph winds, he said.

The precipitation from Florence will start midday Thursday and then it will rain for four days, said CNN Meteorologist Tom Sater.More than 1 million people are under mandatory evacuations in Virginia and the Carolinas, where up to 40 inches of rain could fall.

“We’re a little anxious about the storm surge so we came down to see what the river is doing now”, Smith said.

The US National Hurricane Center showed past year that between 1963 and 2012, 49 percent of US hurricane deaths were caused by the storm surge.

Hurricane Florence is not expected to make landfall until Friday morning but residents in coastal areas are already losing power as gusts lash the eastern edge of North Carolina.

Residents along a large swathe of the United States coastline have fled their homes as forecasters warned Hurricane Florence could stay just offshore for days before pushing inland.

The storm’s eye was about 145 miles southeast of Wilmington as of 11 a.m., the briefing said. “Most of the airports in the storm’s path are smaller, coastal airports”.

Forecasters say the storm is likely to remain constant in strength, weakening only after the center of the storm moves inland.

Florence is projecting hurricane-force winds outward up to 80 miles from its center; tropical-storm-force winds are swirling outward up to 195 miles away.

Florence is the most risky of three tropical systems now in the Atlantic. “We’re about to be in the thick of it”.

“It will be historic”, Baker said of the rain from Florence. And this, he said, is like nothing Toronto has ever seen.

“It doesn’t matter where you are”, he said. Right now, the biggest issue with Florence is storm surge.

Besides inundating the coast with wind-driven storm surges of seawater as high as 4m along the Carolina coast, Florence could dump 51cm-76cm of rain over much of the region.

Despite the fact that the hurricane has been downgraded to Category 2, the 80 miles per hour winds and coastal flooding will still cause significant damage throughout the southeast.

“We’re just trying to plan for the future here, not having a house for an extended period of time”, David Garrigus said. The area will suffer far beyond the immediate effects expected.

Inland flooding near New Bern, North Carolina caused by Hurricane Florence’s storm surge as predicted by the ADCIRC computer model. As serene as the images are, it’s hard to imagine what conditions are like in the storm and on the water under it.

Of course, these various components blend together to cause maximum, and long-standing, devastation-which is what makes prudent pre-storm measures, and sustained post-storm aid, so critical to preserving human life. Nathan Deal declared an emergency but did not immediately order any evacuations. On Thursday morning, South 17th Street, usually teeming with commuter traffic by 6:30 a.m., was almost devoid of cars.

“The shelters are not taking dogs”, Ramirez said.