US: Hurricane Florence; Several Dead, Power Failures, Disaster declared in N Carolina

Leave a comment
Published On: By

US President Donald Trump has declared a disaster in North Carolina where a tropical storm has killed six amid warnings the worst is far from over.

The center of the storm is expected to head west through South Carolina before turning north on Sunday.

WEB DESK
Hurricane Florence, has already claimed at least six lives and nearly a million people without power on the East Coast, Carolina. According to New York Times Strom continued to move inland at an ominously sluggish pace Saturday, fat with rain and threatening to deliver hardship and devastation far beyond the wind-battered coasts.

 

A Category 1 hurricane when it plowed ashore near Wilmington, N.C., early Friday, Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm hours later and the damage of the first blow along the coast was not as bad as many had feared.

But an early Saturday report from the National Hurricane Center had it crawling west at two miles per hour with maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour. It is likely to mow a path northwest across nearly all of South Carolina, promising a brutal weekend of heavy rain and potential flooding for millions. Storm conditions could also lead to tornadoes and landslides, officials said.

Here are the latest developments:

• The center of the storm is expected to head west through South Carolina before turning north on Sunday.

• Rainfall in North Carolina has broken a state record, according to preliminary reports from the National Weather Service. More than 30 inches were recorded in Swansboro, N.C. The previous record of 24 inches was set in 1999, when Hurricane Floyd pounded the region.

• Among the six storm-related deaths is a mother and child who were killed after a tree fell on their home in Wilmington, and Amber Dawn Lee, 61, who was driving in Union County, S.C., when her vehicle hit a tree in the road.

 

On Saturday morning, the 350-mile-wide storm was strolling along at 2mph, unleashing drenching downpours in eastern South Carolina.

About 100 people still need to be rescued in New Bern, North Carolina, where some 4,200 homes have been damaged, the mayor told CNN.

The riverfront city of 30,000 people has been deluged by 10ft of water, the National Weather Service (NWS) reported.