Everything you need to know about Hurricane Florence

The storm brought 90 miles per hour winds and rains that likely won’t let up for days in the Carolinas.

The National Hurricane Centre 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.

Another person died in a storm-related death in Pender County, North Carolina, according to a spokesperson, when downed trees prevented emergency units from reaching a woman with a medical condition who called for help.

“The wind was so hard, the waters were so hard, that trying to get out we got thrown into trailers”.

This story was compiled from McClatchy papers in North Carolina, the Charlotte Observer and Raleigh News & Observer; and in South Carolina, The State in Columbia, the Beaufort Gazette, The Island Packet in Hilton Head and The Sun News in Myrtle Beach; and supplemented with wire service reports.

“You need to be prepared to be without power for weeks”, Holding said, pointing out that Hurricane Fran knocked out power for two weeks and Hurricane Matthew left him without power for five days. Already, video has come out from along the Carolina coastline showing that the ocean has effectively moved onto the land, swamping homes in the affected area. The storm is expected to lumber into far southeastern North Carolina and eastern SC through Saturday, punishing the area with rain and damaging winds.

The company said as many as three-fourths of its 4 million customers in North Carolina and SC could lose power.

Early on Friday, South Carolina emergency officials said there was still time, “but not a lot of time” for people to leave flood-prone areas.

Hurricane Florence had been projected to hit the area earlier in the week, causing many people to hit the stores and stock up on bread, water and batteries.

A dog is rescued from floodwaters in Jacksonville, North Carolina.

One resident, restaurant owner Tom Ballance, told the Associated Press he now thinks he should have evacuated.

There’s still a threat from rising tides, Risty-Davis says.

“We’ve had people in attics, on top of roofs”, she said.

“A big worry about Hurricane Florence is that it’s not acting like a normal hurricane”, said Al Jazeera’s Andy Gallacher, reporting from Wilmington, North Carolina.

Hurricane Florence smashed into the Carolinas yesterday, pounding coastal areas with high winds, a surge of sea water and torrential rain.

Meteorologists expect the storm to hover over the Carolinas through Saturday as it moves inland, rolling over parts of Georgia and Tennessee into Sunday afternoon and then weakening to heavy rain and wind in traveling up the Appalachians toward the Northeast.

The hurricane center predicts as much as 101 centimeters (40 inches) of rain for some parts of North Carolina.

As of 11:00 pm (0300 GMT), maximum sustained winds had weakened to 65 miles (104 kilometers) per hour but the NHC warned residents to be alert for life-threatening storm surges and “catastrophic freshwater flooding”.

“This storm is going to continue its violent grind across our state for days”, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said. With every inch of rain, our rivers rise and we’ll see significant flooding on into next week – could be of historic proportions.

At the Walmart Emergency Operations Center (EOC), representatives from across the retailer’s business have been working to help its facilities, associates and customers prepare for and respond to Florence. States of emergency have already been declared in both North and SC.