Hurricane Florence lashes U.S. east coast, triggers flood warnings

The child’s father was taken to a hospital.

With many employees at risk, Novartis said it has temporarily stopped pharmaceutical production at their Wilson, North Carolina site.

Gov. Roy Cooper confirmed one of the deaths occurred in Lenoir County, when someone was plugging in a generator, according to a press release.

Does it matter that Florence is moving slowly?

Further up the coast in New Jersey, Ocean Resort Casino in Atlantic City opened its doors to let Hurricane Florence evacuees stay for free.

The hurricane was seen as a major test for the country’s Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was heavily criticized as slow and unprepared for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico previous year.

Forecasters warned that drenching rains of anywhere from 1 to 3½ feet as the storm crawls westward across North and SC could trigger epic flooding well inland over the next few days.

Emergency declarations were in force in Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Twenty inches (50 cm) were reported by early Friday afternoon in the town of Oriental.

Corps staff can also help places needing temporary power, temporary roofing and housing and ill be part of preliminary damage assessments, Alexander said. Numerous calls are from residents who are trapped in their homes, some of whom reported floodwater rising up to the second floor. “These are folks who are maybe in one-story buildings and they’re seeing the floodwaters rise”.

The father sustained injuries and was transported to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington for medical care.

The woman and infant died when a tree fell on their house in Wilmington, North Carolina, police said.

Flooding and a strong storm surge prompted more than 90 calls to the emergency operation center in Craven County, N.C., for residents trapped in vehicles and homes, spokeswoman Amber Parker said.

“It’s insane”, he said in a phone interview. “I’m going to get killed on the road, ‘” Bradley said.

More than 320,000 power outages were reported across North Carolina and almost 4,400 in SC.

Hurricane Irma destroyed Kathy Griffin’s house in Florida a year ago, and it could be days before she finds out whether Florence smashed her fifth-story condominium in Wrightsville Beach, where authorities said utilities could be out for days or weeks. The storm will then turn northward across western North Carolina and the central Appalachian Mountains early next week.

Forecasters said it appears the storm will make landfall somewhere around Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, which sits just east of Wilmington. Others could only wait and hope someone would come for them.

The station’s general manager, Matt Bowman, wrote in a statement that their reporting teams will continue providing their viewers with information as Hurricane Florence hits the Carolinas. “I’m a little bit scared right now, but I have my iPad and I’m watching Netflix”.

Not everyone was taking Florence too seriously: About two dozen locals gathered Thursday night behind the boarded-up windows of The Barbary Coast bar as Florence blew into Wilmington. More than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to clear out.

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