Emergency officials are scrambling to rescue dozens of people stranded in their homes by Hurricane Florence Friday morning after the storm began its assault on the Carolinas.
Florence made landfall shortly after 7 a.m. Friday near the city of Wilmington, North Carolina. Wind and rain from the storm began battering the coast early Thursday evening. As the storm worsened throughout the night and into the morning, reports of collapsed roofs and other damage rolled in to North Carolina police. (RELATED: 400,000 People Without Power As Florence Slams The Carolinas)
About 150 people were waiting on rescue workers in the city of New Bern, city officials told The Washington Post. Emergency crews had evacuated about 100 people by around 5:30 a.m. Friday, North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said on “Fox & Friends.”
“We want to thank our brave first responders who are out there now working in terrible conditions. Over 100 people in New Bern have been rescued” –@NC_Governor pic.twitter.com/eqBLF43vOK
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) September 14, 2018
“A lot of people did evacuate, and we are grateful for that. We’ve got almost 20,000 people in 157 shelters,” Cooper said.
Florence was downgraded to a Category 1 storm but might cause destruction equal to that of a much more powerful storm because of its heavy rainfall and slow movement.
“With this storm, it’s a [Category 1] but the storm surge and the flooding is going to be that of a Category 4,” CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray said Thursday, according to CNN.
“I see a biblical proportion flood event that’s going to occur,” Wilmington police chief Ralph Evangelous told ABC News. “I see the beach communities being inundated with water and destruction that will be pretty, pretty epic in nature.”
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