TARBORO, N.C. (Reuters) - Floodwaters inundated the historic black town of Princeville, North Carolina, on Thursday, leaving homes submerged to their roof lines as the state’s death toll in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew climbed to 22.

Local residents gather on their front porch as a child shoots a BB gun while they seek refuge from flood waters due to Hurricane Matthew in Lumberton, North Carolina, October 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Flooding from the Tar River had been expected in Princeville, which was founded in 1885 and believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, and most of its 2,000 residents evacuated.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory described a dramatic rise in the water level in the town, long been plagued by flooding and devastated by floods after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Areas that had about a foot of water on Thursday morning were covered in up to 12 feet by afternoon, he said.

“Princeville is basically under water at this time,” McCrory told a news conference after flying over the town. “You gotta see it to believe it.”

The governor praised the town’s residents for heeding evacuation orders, saying no one there had died.

However, McCrory announced two additional fatalities after the storm death toll rose to 20 late on Wednesday. The latest victims included someone who drowned in Lenoir County after driving around a barricade for a washed-out roadway. Most of the state’s deaths from the hurricane have been drownings, he said.

“Stay off the roads,” McCrory said. “Stay out of the water.”

More than 30 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew, with a fourth death announced in South Carolina by that state’s governor on Thursday. Before hitting the southeast U.S. coast, the fierce storm killed around 1,000 people on its rampage through Haiti last week.

The recovery effort in central and eastern North Carolina is expected to take weeks or months. So far, the federal government has disbursed about $2.6 million to individual flooding victims and approved $5 million for emergency road repairs.</s>Flooding from the Tar River had been expected in Princeville, which was founded in 1885 and believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, and most of its 2,000 residents evacuated.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory described a dramatic rise in the water level in the town, long been plagued by flooding and devastated by floods after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Areas that had about a foot of water on Thursday morning were covered in up to 12 feet by afternoon, he said.

"Princeville is basically under water at this time," McCrory told a news conference after flying over the town. "You gotta see it to believe it."

The governor praised the town's residents for heeding evacuation orders, saying no one there had died.

However, McCrory announced two additional fatalities after the storm death toll rose to 20 late on Wednesday. The latest victims included someone who drowned in Lenoir County after driving around a barricade for a washed-out roadway. Most of the state's deaths from the hurricane have been drownings, he said.

"Stay off the roads," McCrory said. "Stay out of the water."

More than 30 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew, with a fourth death announced in South Carolina by that state's governor on Thursday. Before hitting the southeast U.S. coast, the fierce storm killed around 1,000 people on its rampage through Haiti last week.

The recovery effort in central and eastern North Carolina is expected to take weeks or months. So far, the federal government has disbursed about $2.6 million to individual flooding victims and approved $5 million for emergency road repairs.</s>LUMBERTON, N.C. – As North Carolina struggles with the deadly aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, forecasters Wednesday warned that rain-fed waters were still on the rise in some areas – with at least one river expected to crest this weekend at nearly double the flood stage.

The swollen Neuse River – cutting through coastal flatlands south of Greenville – underscores the flood threats facing parts of the state for the coming days even as rescue teams try to move people out of danger and utility crews work to restore power to nearly 200,000 customers.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, R, said storm-related deaths now stand at 19 across the state, and he again called for full-scale evacuation from threatened areas. Among them: the valley below Wood Lake Dam, about 20 miles northwest of Fayetteville, which has been reinforced but remains in danger of failing.

“We’ve had too many deaths,” said McCrory. “Get out. Once the water flows, it’s too late.”

The National Weather Service predicted that the Neuse was moving toward “dangerous flooding levels” of near 27.5 feet by early Saturday near the town of Kinston before starting to fall. The rise – already above the 14-foot flood stage in the area – is forecast to top the spillover from destructive Hurricane Floyd 17 years ago.

Matthew Young’s home in Kinston was inundated with water during a flash flood on Saturday. The rain was falling too hard during Hurricane Matthew for the soil to absorb it. He’s using the evenings after work to clean up the mess, but his renter’s insurance does not cover flood damage. He told The Washington Post he’ll be applying for FEMA assistance.

“It will be weeks before things are even remotely back to normal here,” Young said.

Many of the Kinston homes, buildings and farms that were flooded Saturday are getting hit for the second time in less than a week as the Neuse River climbs to a new record. Mandatory evacuations have been in place since Monday along the river in Lenoir County, where Kinston is located, but some residents aren’t budging.

“Although the water is rising slowly, it IS RISING,” B.J. Murphy, Kinston’s mayor, wrote on his Facebook page Wednesday morning. “We have knocked on every door a minimum of two times and left notices at empty homes. Our Kinston Police Department will continue to knock until we can’t get there any more.”

“If you know someone living in these areas, please plead with them to get out,” Murphy added.

In Princeville — a town that was submerged by flooding after Hurricane Floyd in 1999 — the swollen Tar River is threatening the low-lying town in a close call that residents here are struggling to fathom. After Floyd, the town was fortified in an expensive engineering process that aimed to prevent something similar from ever happening again. Officials in Edgecombe County say they believe Princeville will escape without major damage, but water began entering one section of the town on Wednesday morning.

“It’s ankle-deep in the back of town,” said William Johnson, Edgecombe County’s assistant manager.

For now, the town sits entirely empty, and evacuated residents follow the Tar River levels with updates on their phones. The river stands at 36 feet. A dike, constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after Floyd, is built to protect Princeville up to 37 feet. The river is expected to crest early Wednesday afternoon.

Though the dike — a crown-like cap at the north part of town — has held as designed, water is entering through the side, after the dike tapers off. Princeville town manager Daniel Gerald said water was also being pressured into town through a storm drain, “reverse-vacuumed in” under pressure from the river.

“I’ve never seen this, and I’m a water and sewer guy,” Gerald said.

Princeville is thought to be the first town in the U.S. settled by freed slaves. After Floyd, nearly every home was submerged and destroyed, and some residents slept in FEMA trailers for more than a year.

Nearly 25 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew as it churned up the East Coast after killing hundreds in Haiti and battering Cuba and the Bahamas.

Across four states — Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas — nearly 4,500 people stayed in Red Cross shelters on Tuesday night, according to a Red Cross spokesperson. The majority of those displaced residents, around 3,800, were holed up in 57 shelters across eastern North Carolina.

We’re trying to make sure people have a dry place, a roof over their heads and a warm meal,” said Peter Macias. Nurses and mental health professionals have volunteered their time to ensure shelter residents are mentally and physically healthy, Macias told The Washington Post.

The flood dealt a direct blow to the poorest section of North Carolina, a tract of farmland and towns struggling after losing manufacturing jobs. More than 4,000 people have been forced from their homes into shelters at high schools and recreation centers, many lacking flood insurance, health insurance or stable employment. McCrory said the challenges ahead include finding temporary housing for those displaced by the floods.

In some hard-hit communities, like Lumberton, the flooding also cut along socioeconomic lines: A white area of town was preserved, while a lower-lying African American section now stands in several feet of water. But in other parts of the state, emergency officials say, a diverse group of people has been pushed from their homes.

“When a flood like this hits, the pain of it is exacerbated by the poverty,” said the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP. “What we’re talking about, particularly in eastern Carolina, are some of the poorest communities in the country – black and white, who already had economic challenges before something like this.”

At shelters Tuesday, people said they were uncertain how long they would be sleeping in bleachers and on gym floors.

States of emergency remained in effect in nearly half of the state’s 100 counties, and 52 shelters housed more than 4,300 people, officials said. Another hazard on the horizon: chemicals and dead animals that could contaminate some water supplies.

In Robeson County, where Lumberton is the county seat, rescue workers were scrambling to reach more than 1,000 people, many of them in a neighborhood of small apartment complexes and public housing.

In addition to the drowning deaths, investigators probed a fatal shooting of a man in Lumberton involving a North Carolina Highway Patrol officer and two deputies during “the high-water situation,” McCrory said.

The shooting took place during swift-water search-and-rescue efforts in downtown Lumberton. Three law enforcement officers – two members of the Robeson County Sheriff’s Office and a Highway Patrol sergeant – were conducting search-and-rescues when they encountered the man shortly after 8 p.m. Monday.

They were traveling on a flooded part of West Fifth Street when they met the man, who then “became hostile towards the officers and displayed a handgun,” the Highway Patrol said in a statement Tuesday. “The shooting took place in swift water that was approximately three to four feet deep and resulted in a male succumbing to injuries,” according to a statement by the N.C. State Bureau of Investigation.

The North Carolina Highway Patrol on Tuesday afternoon said officer J.F. Hinson, a 13-year veteran assigned to a patrol office in Robeson County, has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

Authorities were still working to identify the next-of-kin of the man fatally shot by Hinson, the highway patrol said Tuesday. Once that is done, authorities will identify him.

“While we are saddened by any loss of life, I am thankful that our member and the Robeson County Sheriffs’ deputies were not injured,” Col. Bill Grey, commander of the Highway Patrol, said in a statement. The Highway Patrol asked the State Bureau of Investigation to investigate the shooting.

The unidentified man in Lumberton was at least the 746th person to be shot and killed by a police officer this year, according to a Washington Post database tracking such shootings.

In areas hit hard by Hurricane Matthew, entire neighborhoods were evacuated as officials also moved hospital patients and prison inmates from areas of possible flooding.

“But this could still get a lot worse,” said John Locklear, a local volunteer firefighter who was driving a military vehicle in Lumberton on Monday. “Each house is going to have to be searched. Just like New Orleans.”

Though the rain had subsided two days earlier, this community – like other inland areas across the state – was reckoning with the hurricane’s delayed blow, coming as rainfall rushed into larger bodies of water and overwhelmed levees and drainage systems.

The Lumber River was at a record 24 feet, half-swallowing the southern part of Lumberton. In that area, garbage cans, tree branches and charcoal grills floated down the road. Basketball backboards poked from the water – but their nets were submerged. Hundreds of people had initially evacuated to an elementary school, but then water started rushing in and the evacuations started anew.

“I’m scared to give you an estimate” about the death toll, said Erich Hackney, a councilman for the city of Lumberton, “and I’m scared to know what we’ll find.”

Though Hurricane Matthew approached Florida with Category 4 strength, this region was caught off-guard. Last Friday, the Weather Service predicted that the Lumber River would crest at 19.4 feet, below the record of 20.5. But Matthew ultimately tracked closer to the North Carolina coast than predicted, and Lara Pagano, a Weather Service hydrologist, said the forecast changed “truly as [the event] was happening.”

“Hurricanes will wobble back and forth, and that makes all the difference in where we see the heaviest rainfall,” she said.

Spencer Rogers, a coastal construction and erosion specialist with North Carolina State University’s Sea Grant program, said the flooding is driven by the dynamics of the state’s river systems as they run through the coastal plain. “The ocean can receive a lot of water,” he said. “It’s the river areas where the confined river basin backs up the water, and it just can’t flow out fast enough.”

Officials in North Carolina fear a repeat of Hurricane Floyd. The 1999 storm caused 57 deaths – 35 of them in North Carolina, most of them from inland drowning in the days after rain subsided. Floyd also caused an estimated $6 billion in damage, leaving thousands of people without homes and keeping communities underwater for days and weeks.

President Obama declared a major disaster in North Carolina on Monday, which could help speed federal aid to affected residents.

Even before Matthew arrived, North Carolina’s soil was already saturated. Then some parts of the state received more than 17 inches of rain in a day. The subsequent flooding has forced the closure of miles-long sections of interstates 95 and 40. Schools have canceled classes. Grocery stores are shuttered. Some towns, such as Lumberton, have no running water. Statewide, hundreds of thousands of people are without power.

McCrory said the storm will have long-term consequences for much of the state, though improvements have occurred for the communities upstream. The Woodlake Dam in Moore County, which threatened to fail Monday night, has been shored up. Two people who were missing earlier had been found by Tuesday evening, McCrory said.

Greenville and Goldsboro are expected to reach peak flooding Tuesday and Wednesday, and then continue in major flood stage through the end of the week. A “major” flood is the most severe on the Weather Service scale and typically means mass evacuations and extensive property inundation.

Downstream from Rocky Mount, Greenville is likely to be inundated later this week. “Numerous houses adjacent to the [Tar River] will be flooded in Greenville,” said Pagano, who expects the Tar River will crest there sometime Wednesday. “All the roads in and around Greenville will be flooded and impassable.”

Greenville Mayor Allen Thomas issued mandatory evacuation orders for parts of the city as water continue to rise in the river. The evacuation order asked residents who live on both sides of the river to leave home and be prepared to be gone until at least early next week. In addition, Thomas also recommended – but did not mandate – evacuations for people who live in other neighborhoods and areas.

Although there haven’t been any swift-water rescues in Greenville since Saturday, that could change as the water rises.

“We do have teams standing by, and we are anticipating that [rescues] may be an issue,” Rebekah Thurston, a spokeswoman for the city’s fire department, said Tuesday afternoon. “The majority have evacuated, but, of course, we’re always going to have some that say they don’t want to leave their home, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Fritz reported from Washington. Arelis R. Hernández in Charleston, S.C.; Kirk Ross in Carolina Beach, N.C.; and Brian Murphy and Mark Berman in Washington contributed to this report.</s>RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Searchers have found two more bodies inside vehicles that were submerged in flood waters in North Carolina from Hurricane Matthew, increasing the toll in the state to 26 dead.

Gov. Pat McCrory said at a news conference Saturday that the victims were found in Cumberland County and Wayne County after flood waters from last weekend’s rains receded.

Flooding triggered by the hurricane has killed at least 43 people in the United States and more than 500 people in Haiti.

McCrory says most of the people killed in his state either drove or were walking through flood waters and were swept away.

The governor says recovery from the flood continues even as waters continue to crest. Only 13,000 customers in the state remain without power.</s>LUMBERTON, N.C./KINSTON, N.C. — Flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew has displaced several thousand people in North Carolina, and authorities were helping more evacuate on Tuesday, Oct. 11, as swollen rivers threatened a wide swath of the state.

Governor Pat McCrory warned of "extremely dangerous" conditions in the coming days in central and eastern North Carolina, where several rivers were at record or near-record levels.

Matthew, the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007, killed at least 1,000 people in Haiti last week before barreling up the U.S. southeastern coast and causing at least 30 deaths in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

McCrory's office said four additional deaths were confirmed on Tuesday in North Carolina, raising the death toll in the state to 18. One person was reported as missing.

An additional U.S. death occurred on Monday night in Lumberton, North Carolina, where officials said a highway patrol officer fatally shot a man who became hostile and flashed a handgun during search-and-rescue efforts in fast-running floodwater.

Nearly 4,000 people have taken refuge in North Carolina shelters, including about 1,200 people in the hard-hit Lumberton area, where the Lumber River had crested at almost 4 feet above the prior record set in 2004 after Hurricane Frances.

Water blanketed the city of 21,000 people, leaving businesses flooded, homes with water up to their roof lines and drivers stranded after a stretch of Interstate-95 became impassable.

"We lost everything," said Sarah McCallum, 62, who was staying in a shelter set up in an agricultural center after floodwaters drove her from her home of 20 years.

State officials are particularly concerned about victims like McCallum, who have no flood insurance because they do not live in areas typically prone to inundation. U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday signed a disaster declaration for North Carolina, which will make federal funding available to people in the hardest-hit areas.

Obama approved a similar declaration on Tuesday for South Carolina, where Matthew made landfall on Saturday. State officials are now urging residents to prepare for potential flooding from the Waccamaw and Little Pee Dee rivers.

About 532,000 homes and businesses remained without power in the U.S. Southeast on Tuesday, down from the peak of around 2.2 million on Sunday morning when the storm was still battering the Carolina coasts.

Matthew dumped more than a foot of rain in areas of North Carolina already soaked from heavy September rainfall. It has triggered the worst flooding in the state since Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, the National Weather Service said.

That storm caused devastating floods in North Carolina, resulting in 35 deaths, 7,000 destroyed homes and more than $3 billion in damages in the state.

In Matthew's wake, officials are monitoring a number of overtopped or breaching dams in addition to the threat of inland river flooding, the governor's office said.

Concerns about a potential breach of the Woodlake Dam, which led to overnight evacuations in the central North Carolina town of Spring Lake, had eased by Tuesday afternoon after it was reinforced with 700 sandbags, but a mandatory evacuation was still in effect for nearby residents.

McCrory warned that the Tar River was expected to crest on Wednesday in Greenville, where a mandatory evacuation order is already in place.

Officials remain concerned about Kinston, where significant flooding was already occurring from the Neuse River, which is expected to crest at about 27 feet on Saturday, just shy of the Floyd record.

Retired construction worker Wesley Turner, 71, said he fled his home near Kinston with his dogs on Friday after his power went out and the water quickly rose to about chest deep.

After several nights in a shelter, he did not know on Tuesday whether he had anything to return to.

"I can't get to my house because it is under water," Turner said.</s>GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) — The Latest on flooding after Hurricane Matthew (all times local):

Gov. Pat McCrory says more damage is still to come for many people in the eastern part of North Carolina as the state faces its ninth day of Hurricane Matthew’s aftermath.

He also said the state’s death toll from the storm has risen to 19.

At a news conference Wednesday in Raleigh, McCrory said serious flooding is heading downstream even though the weather now looks beautiful.

He said many people are hurting, living in shelters and preparing for major flooding. The governor says major flood issues remain in Robeson County.

The governor is especially worried about the Tar River in Greenville and the Neuse River in Goldsboro.

Four counties have been added to the federal disaster declaration: Bertie, Wayne, Johnston and Wilson counties.

The number of power outages in the state has dropped to 143,000.



Flooding across eastern North Carolina is still expected to get worse before it gets better.

The National Weather Service says the Tar River in Greenville was at nearly 23 feet. It’s expected to reach 25 feet late Thursday night or early Friday.

The airport in Greenville was flooded and officials ordered the evacuation of about one tenth of the city’s 90,000 people. East Carolina University is closed for the rest of the week.

The Neuse River in Kinston is also still rising and is expected to peak Saturday. The weather service says the flooding is comparable to that of Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Forecasters say all roads on the south side of Kinston will be flooded.

Flooding was also reported in Fayetteville. Forecasters say moderate flooding is occurring and conditions aren’t expected to get better before Friday morning.

Homeowners, students and businesses in one of eastern North Carolina’s population centers are keeping a nervous watch on the river that flows along downtown, as Hurricane Matthew’s deadly after-effects lingered days after the storm passed.

Authorities ordered evacuations for about one-tenth of Greenville’s 90,000 people. The Tar River is expected crest Wednesday.

Military trucks rumbled through leafy neighborhoods Tuesday where orange traffic cones and police tape discouraged people from entering. Police officers were stationed at the edge of the evacuation zone to monitor who came and went.

David Baker, whose family owns the River Bank Apartments, said all but one of their tenants had heeded the evacuation order by Tuesday, and he was spending the afternoon putting boards and sealant across the doorways of ground-floor units.</s>Rising rivers caused more misery across Eastern North Carolina on Tuesday, where the Hurricane Matthew death toll climbed to 18 and residents in shelters feared for their homes.

Major roads were still closed in places, and water rescues continued. There was progress on power restoration, as outages slowly declined to 190,000 from Sunday’s peak of 800,000.

The scale of the disaster was enormous and shifting, as waters rose in some areas and receded in others. Conditions will worsen along the banks of the Tar and Neuse rivers, which will crest in Eastern North Carolina towns in the next three days – almost a week since the hurricane pounded an already saturated state with more than a foot of rain.

Most of the 18 deaths occurred from drowning, as motorists were swept away on flooded roads, Gov. Pat McCrory said in briefings. One man died in Wake County when a tree fell on his car.

“This is terrible news,” McCrory said late Tuesday, warning drivers not to look for shortcuts around roads blocked off because of flooding. That endangers first responders, he said, suggesting that officials would not send rescuers into situations that seemed too dangerous for them.

“Do not go through water!” the governor said. “We’re not messing around.”

More than 2,000 people had been rescued from swift-water teams in the eastern part of the state, mostly in Robeson and Cumberland counties. More than 400 high-water and rescue vehicles had been deployed, and 90 helicopter rescues had been conducted.

During the flooding in Lumberton, a state trooper shot and killed a man Monday night. The shooting happened about 8 p.m. on Fifth Street, where two Robeson sheriff’s deputies were conducting search-and-rescue operations with a patrol sergeant, the State Highway Patrol said in a news release. A man displayed a handgun and became hostile to the officers, the patrol said, and was then fatally shot by the sergeant, who was identified as J.F. Hinson, a 13-year veteran. The man who died was not identified; the shooting is being reviewed by the State Bureau of Investigation.

Elsewhere, Lenoir County and Kinston were under mandatory evacuation orders for residents near the Neuse River. Early Tuesday, officials in Moore County began evacuating people downstream of Lake Surf, because the dam holding back the lake was nearly ready to break, they said. Sandbags were piled at the dam to stabilize it, but the National Weather Service kept a flash-flood warning in effect.

About 4,000 people were in emergency shelters in central and eastern North Carolina – a quarter of those in the Lumberton area.

McCrory said he requested federal assistance for individuals as well as state and local governments for 66 counties. On Monday, 10 counties were approved for individual federal assistance and 31 counties were approved for public federal assistance. Late Tuesday, word came that federal aid would be available to individuals in four additional counties – Bertie, Johnston, Wayne and Wilson. Also, people in Beaufort, Bladen, Columbus, Cumberland, Edgecombe, Hoke, Lenoir, Nash, Pitt and Robeson counties are eligible for federal help.

Water and power returned to most parts of Johnston County on Tuesday, but those on county water service still were under a boil advisory. Johnston County Schools canceled class for students for the rest of the week. Johnston was hard hit, with hundreds of rescues and three fatalities.

The flooding could continue for several days as rivers and creeks swell. The Neuse River crested in Goldsboro on Tuesday night at a record 29 feet, while the Tar River is expected to rise to 35 feet in Tarboro on Wednesday afternoon and 25 feet in Greenville on Wednesday night. The Neuse is forecast to rise to 27 feet on Friday.

At an emergency shelter at Tarboro High School, which housed 140 people Monday night, those who had been evacuated from Princeville and Tarboro along the Tar River worried about their homes. Many had lived there when Hurricane Floyd flooded them out in 1999.

“Not knowing exactly what the next move is going to be, that’s hard,” said Regina Brooks, a 27-year-old Princeville resident who had been staying in the shelter with her 1-year-old and 2-year-old daughters and her mother since Sunday.

Just a few streets away, closer to the river that divides Princeville from Tarboro, emergency vehicles blocked both ends of the bridge that links the two Edgecombe County towns.

But on a warm October day, with clear blue skies and temperatures in the high 60s, many residents walked across the bridge, taking pictures of the swift-moving Tar River and comparing its spillover to Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Rick Page, a former Tarboro mayor who also was a utility director when Floyd spurred massive flooding, said the Tar River was not as high Tuesday as it had been after Floyd. He pointed to a grassy dike on the Princeville side. If the river spilled over the dike, he said, that would mean big trouble for the Princeville residents.

But the people on the bridge watched the water and hoped for the best.</s>GREENVILLE, N.C. — Authorities made fresh appeals Wednesday for people in eastern North Carolina to leave low-lying areas as rivers swollen with rainwater caused flooding days after Hurricane Matthew passed.

Evacuations were ordered for about one-tenth of Greenville's 90,000 people. The Tar River continued to rise as forecasters expected it to crest above 25 feet by early Friday, a slight upward revision from previous estimates.

Authorities have closed one bridge across the swollen Tar and warned that multiple other bridges could close, isolating people on opposite sides. The city's airport was expected to remain closed for another week due to flooding.

Elsewhere, flood conditions in Fayetteville were expected to last until Friday morning, while the Neuse River in Kinston was also still rising and expected to peak Saturday.

Kinston mayor BJ Murphy said authorities would go door-to-door again Wednesday to urge people to evacuate. Perhaps complicating efforts for people trying to leave, a highway running north out of the surrounding county was closed early Wednesday.

"We want you to evacuate these low-lying areas absolutely and immediately," he told WITN-TV on Wednesday. "The time to get out is now."

In a possible sign of storm-driven tensions, authorities said a state trooper shot and killed an armed man in Lumberton who became angry with officers carrying out search and rescue missions. They released little other information about the shooting.

In Greenville, military trucks rumbled through leafy neighborhoods where orange traffic cones and police tape discouraged people from entering. Police were stationed at the edge of the evacuation zone to monitor who came and went.

David Baker, whose family owns the River Bank Apartments, said all but one of their tenants had heeded the evacuation order by Tuesday, and he was spending the afternoon putting boards and sealant across the doorways of ground-floor units. A half-inch of water had already pooled in the parking lot, not far from where he stood.

"We've been back and forth all day buying pumps and supplies and stuff," he said.

Matthew's death toll in the U.S. climbed to 34, more than half of them in North Carolina, in addition to the more than 500 feared dead in Haiti.

In North Carolina, tens of thousands of people, some of them as much as 125 miles inland, have been warned to move to higher ground since the hurricane drenched the state.

Gov. Pat McCrory urged people to heed evacuation orders. Still, Greenville resident John Benson felt confident his house would be OK. His block didn't take on water during Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and his street is on a steep grade, making a quick getaway possible.

"Police, fire people, came around, bull-horning and talking to us. They let everybody know to get out," he said.

In the hard-hit town of Lumberton, along the bloated Lumber River, Ada Page spent two nights sleeping in a hard plastic folding chair at a shelter put together so hastily there were no cots. People had to use portable toilets outside.

"I left at home all my clothes, everything. The only thing I have is this child and what I was driving," said Page, who was with an 8-year-old granddaughter.

The full extent of the disaster in North Carolina was still unclear, but it appeared that thousands of homes were damaged. Many likened Matthew to Hurricane Floyd, which did $3 billion in damage and destroyed 7,000 homes in North Carolina as it skirted the state's coast in 1999.

East Carolina University in Greenville canceled classes for the rest of the week for its more than 28,000 students.

Travis Ambrose, a 23-year-old junior majoring in history education, said he and his roommates were passing the time by watching television and getting ahead on schoolwork. He and several other students walked within a few feet of where the brown water was approaching an apartment building. He said the river's banks are normally more than 100 yards away, hidden behind a tree line.

"If you're not used to this kind of stuff you're going to see this and panic," he said. "To me, it's like, you have a bit of tension in the back of your head but you realize it's going to be all right."

Associated Press writers Meg Kinnard in Nichols, South Carolina; Jack Jones and Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; and Tom Foreman Jr. in Charlotte, North Carolina; contributed to this report.</s>KINSTON, N.C. - Officials in North Carolina said they would go door to door on Wednesday urging people to leave low-lying areas as rivers swollen by rainfall from Hurricane Matthew continue to rise, threatening homes and resulting in more drownings.

Floodwaters have swamped areas across the central and eastern part of the state, forcing more than 3,800 residents to flee to shelters, closing down stretches of major interstate highways and shuttering 34 school systems, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said.

McCrory said the death toll in the state had risen to 19, mostly due to drowning. That figure represents more than half of the deaths in the U.S. Southeast linked to the fierce Atlantic storm, which killed some 1,000 people in Haiti and displaced hundreds of thousands more as it tore through the Caribbean last week.

"Do not get near the water," McCrory said at a news conference in Raleigh. "It will kill you."

Matthew's aftermath drew comparisons to Hurricane Floyd, which triggered devastating floods in North Carolina in 1999 and caused more than $3 billion in damages in the state.

In Kinston, where the Neuse River is expected to peak on Saturday just shy of the Floyd record, Mayor B.J. Murphy warned residents on Wednesday not to be fooled by the beautiful fall weather and clear skies.

"We want you out, and we want you out now," he said in an interview on WITN television news. "This is a very dangerous situation."

Kinston resident Toby Hatch, 60, who lived through Floyd and Hurricane Irene, which destroyed his home in 2011, heeded the city's evacuation order this week and headed to a shelter.

"I didn’t really want to leave, but I was already looking at enough water that I was trapped," he said.

Evacuations also continued in Greenville, where the Tar River was 10 feet above flood stage and forecast to crest even higher by Friday. Flooding has forced the city's airport to close and classes were canceled for the week for East Carolina University's 28,000 students.</s>TARBORO, N.C. (AP) — In North Carolina, where flooding along rivers has eased enough for some residents to start returning to their homes, the governor has pledged help rebuild one of the hard-hit historic towns.

Gov. Pat McCrory on Thursday made an aerial tour of Princeville, one of the country’s oldest towns charted by African-Americans.

The town overrun by floodwaters created by Hurricane Matthew was also inundated in 1999 during Hurricane Floyd.

The governor said National Guard troops have been sent to Princeville with high-water vehicles to ensure no one loots stores or steals from vacant homes.

“I want to let them know we will be with you, and we’ll do everything we can to help you rebuild this city,” McCrory said. “And also, steps need to be taken where this won’t happen again in the future.”

McCrory said the flooding may be worse than what’s occurring to the south in Lumberton.

The flooding triggered by heavy rain from Matthew — which killed more than 500 people in Haiti — has left at least 38 dead in the U.S.

McCrory said the number of statewide power outages continues to drop, down to about 44,000 from a peak of more than 800,000 Sunday. He reported the state’s death toll climbed to 22.

But McCrory said flooding continues to be a major problem in poor areas in the eastern part of the state.

“It’s a surreal experience to see this on a sunshiny day,” McCrory said.

Floyd roared ashore on Sept. 15, 1999, not long after another hurricane saturated the state. Two days later, the rising Tar River engulfed Princeville in water 20 feet deep near the town hall.

Princeville’s history as one of the country’s first towns created by freed slaves in 1865 helped boost a rebuilding effort. The Federal Emergency Management Agency gave $26 million to Princeville’s residents and another $1.5 million to the town.
The death toll in North Carolina rises to 22 as flood waters continue to rise. Governor Pat McCrory says places that had a foot of water in the morning, were under 12 feet of water.