United States braces for Hurricane Florence IMPACT as more than a MILLION flee

Hurricane Florence’s leading edge battered the Carolina coast Thursday, bending trees and shooting frothy sea water over streets on the Outer Banks, as the hulking storm closed in with 90 miles per hour (135 kph) winds for a drenching siege that could last all weekend. “And I can not stress enough the importance of adhering to the governor’s orders for mandatory evacuation”.

The impact of Florence will be widespread, with destructive winds, life-threatening storm surge, risky surf, torrential rainfall, flooding and the potential for tornadoes.

National Weather Service Though Hurricane Florence was downgraded to a category 2 hurricane, it’s still caused storm surges up to 10 feet in some areas, with the worst of the flooding still expected to come.

But once New Bern TV news station WCTI evacuated its newsroom Thursday night because of flooding and people began to lose power, the seriousness of the situation began dawning on folks, she said.

It was initially unclear how many people ended up being rescued.

To find out the latest on power outages from the various power companies serving North Carolina you can check out the NC Emergency Management website.

Winds and rain were arriving later in SC, and a few people were still walking on the sand at Myrtle Beach while North Carolina was getting pounded.

The remainder of SC and North Carolina into southwest Virginia could see 5 to 10 inches, with some isolated areas seeing 15 inches.

Another said she was watching the forecasts, and would be ready to pack up and leave at the last minute if she had to.

Warning of looming storm surges of nine to 12 feet (2.7-3.6 meters), he urged residents to take the storm seriously no matter the category, saying “this is all about the water anyway”.

The hurricane is expected to generate heavy rainfall in southeast North Carolina and into northeastern SC.

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told a news conference that the “historic” hurricane would unleash rains and floods that would inundate nearly the entire state in several feet of water.

“The magnitude of the storm is beyond what we have seen in years”, Duke Energy incident commander Howard Fowler said in a statement. Officials expect the shellacking to last through Friday and into Saturday. Other areas, including the cities of Darlington, S.C., to Greenville, N.C., imposed their own curfews, set to begin Thursday night.

As the storm approached, the Emergency Operations Center was buzzing with activity.

Carolina Beach lies on a narrow strip of land in the southern part of North Carolina.

The storm is not expected to change much in strength before making landfall, but states up and down the East Coast have a great potential for severe weather.

“The water kept rising and kept rising”, he said. The storm, they warned for the final time, was not to be played with.

That has left a sort of ghost town.

Two people died in Lenoir County.

With the brunt of the slow-moving storm yet to come, about 150 people were awaiting rescue in New Bern, a city near the coast, where a gauge on the Neuse River recorded three metres of inundation, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.

“This time it’s important”.

“It is scary. When somebody tells you something like that, it’s my cue to get out”. “And I just don’t think that there’s a problem that we can’t solve”.

Traffic patterns indicate that many people are leaving the Carolinas, however. “Gracious heavenly father God, just with those in the flood zone, may the damage not be so much”, they prayed. York County crews have been trimming trees in an effort to reduce the number of limbs that could fall on power lines during the storm. Among the tips: Prepare a safety kit and avoid driving through floodwater.

Not everybody was heeding orders to evacuate, however. “I charged the batteries of my electronic devices, I have beers and video games”.