Florence death toll rises to 5 amid massive deluge

“We just don’t want people to think this is over because it’s not”.

Hurricane Florence was making landfall in North Carolina early Friday pushing a life-threatening storm surge for miles inland with screaming wind that was destroying buildings in its path.

A man who was trapped inside his New Bern, North Carolina, home by Tropical Storm Florence spoke with Fox & Friends on Saturday. The family had 3 feet of water in their home, so they called for help, and it took 12 hours for rescuers to get to them.

WILSON, N.C: Tropical Storm Florence dumped “epic” amounts of rain on North and SC as it trudged inland on Saturday, knocking out power and causing at least eight deaths as flood waters that have devastated many communities kept rising.

Members of Onslow County emergency look to see if a passenger was still in a vehicle that was overtaken by flooding on US Route 17 outside of Jacksonville, North Carolina on September 15, 2018 during Tropical Storm Florence.

The death toll is seven and is expected to rise.

Meanwhile, tragedy struck one family in Wilmington when a tree fell on a house; a mother and a child were killed. Officials also said one person was electrocuted in Lenoir County while plugging in a generator in the rain, and a man died after being blown to the ground while checking on his hunting dogs.

The states of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, as well as Washington D.C., declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm.

Heavy rains and storm surge created destructive flooding of several feet throughout the Carolina coast.

Florence flattened trees, crumbled roads and knocked out power to more than 840,000 homes and businesses, and the assault wasn’t anywhere close to being over, with the siege in the Carolinas expected to last all weekend. “We face walls of water.

Flood waters are rising, & if you aren’t watching for them, you are risking life”.

New Bern’s mayor said 4,200 homes were damaged in the city.

The Wilmington region could see “storm totals between 30 and 40 inches along the North Carolina coastal areas south of Cape Hatteras”. That’s enough to fill the Chesapeake Bay or cover the entire state of Texas with almost 4 inches (10 centimetres) of water, he calculated.

Morehead City, North Carolina, had received 23 inches of rain by Friday night, and forecasters warned on Saturday morning that parts of the Carolinas could get up to 15 inches more. Floyd produced 24 inches of rain in some parts of the state, while Florence has already dumped about 30 inches in areas around Swansboro.

The Miami-based center had said earlier Friday Florence’s arrival would come with “catastrophic” fresh water flooding over portions of the Carolinas.

As much as 30 to 40 inches (76-102 cm) of rain could fall on coastal areas in North and SC, the National Hurricane Center said. “Nobody expected this”, a rescued resident, Tom Ballance, toldThe Weather Channel.

Kim Adams wades through waist-deep floodwaters at her home in Southport, North Carolina.

23 aviation rescues, and counting.

“It’s not often that we have to prepare for a hurricane in the mountains, but we are doing so on our campus”, Jason Marshburn, the director of safety and emergency management at Appalachian State University in Boone, wrote in a letter to students and faculty members. Electricity remained out for much of the city, with power lines lying across many roads like wet strands of spaghetti.