Storm surge from Hurricane Florence was captured on video flowing like a river between homes in Avon, North Carolina, on Sept. 13.
“Everybody’s worried about the roads,” local man Chip Stevens said. “This is the first time I have left for a storm. I was not going to leave until they said it was going to stall.”
“This is going to be an ocean overwash event,” noted Bobby Outten, the Dare County manager.
The NHC said in its 2 p.m. ET update that Florence is a Category 2 storm, but it noted that the storm is quite large in diameter. Meanwhile, the storm is forecast to move sluggishly over the Carolinas before turning northwest.
“However, intense rainbands are expected to develop over the Atlantic waters and keep moving along the coast and inland, likely producing strong wind gusts through Saturday (Sept. 15) night,” said the NHC in a discussion of the storm. “Aircraft and satellite wind data show that Florence remains a large hurricane. Life-threatening storm surge, heavy rainfall, and damaging wind will cover a large area regardless of exactly where the center of Florence moves.”
Storm surge and hurricane warnings were issued for most of the North and South Carolina coastline.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned: “Don’t relax, don’t get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality,” according to The Associated Press.
“It truly is really about the whole size of this storm,” National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham told AP. “The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact—and we have that.”
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called on local residents to remain alert despite changing forecasts. “Don’t relax, don’t get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality,” he said, AP reported.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia have all declared states of emergency over the storm.
Around 5.25 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches and some 4.9 million in places covered by tropical storm warnings or watches, AP noted.
