Florence: North Carolina’s rivers still rising after record rain

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In Scotts Hill just outside of Wilmington, several people have been cut off, stuck for days without power or any way to get out.

Hopefully this will be the last we ever hear of Florence but it might not be the last we see of the tropical cyclone.

The USCG shut the port of Wilmington on September 12 ahead of Hurricane Florence, which made landfall on Friday.

“It’s been pretty bad”, said Echavarrieta, 34, his voice breaking. For customers of Duke Energy, the company said it will likely be days or even weeks before power is restored.

His mother had escaped her auto with him after the vehicle was washed away by floodwaters, but then she lost her grip and the boy was swept away, authorities said. Elsewhere in North Carolina, an 88-year-old man died after his vehicle was swept away. One person was killed when Florence spawned at least 16 tornadoes on Monday in Virginia, the National Weather Service said.

Floodwaters – still rising in some areas – were making it hard for rescue personnel to move supplies and people.

It was unclear how long the dogs were trapped inside or whether the owners were aware they were left.

“No one could get in and you couldn’t get out”, Saffo said of her Scotts Hill neighborhood.

Rescuers have saved about 700 people in New Hanover county, where Wilmington is located, and 2,600 people across the state. More than 60 percent of homes and businesses were without power, authorities said.

“For many parts of North Carolina, the danger is still immediate”, the state’s governor, Roy Cooper, told reporters on Monday.

“He’s lived here all his life”.

“The soil is soaked and can’t absorb any more rain so that water has to go somewhere, unfortunately”, he said.

Utility crews from multiple states worked to restore power, and outages were down from a high of more than 900,000 to about 320,000 homes and businesses, almost all in North Carolina.

“Don’t make yourself somebody who needs to be rescued”, Cooper said.

Roads remain treacherous, he said, and some are still being closed for the first time as rivers swelled by torrential rains inland drain toward the Atlantic.

Numerous roads across eastern North Carolina were blocked by fallen trees and flooding including parts of I-95, a major north-south artery.

A 3-month-old baby boy whose North Carolina mobile home was split by a falling pine tree is among at least 18 deaths linked to Florence.

Heavy rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Florence sent tens of thousands of gallons of untreated wastewater into a tributary of North Carolina’s Cape Fear River basin over the weekend.

Trump will visit areas affected by the hurricane, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday, though it wasn’t immediately clear which specific spots are on the president’s list.