Hurricane Florence made landfall in the US last week, and has since brought flooding.

Hurricane Florence made landfall in the US last week, and has since brought flooding.

AT LEAST 20 people have been killed in the Carolinas as storm Florence continues to dump huge amounts of rain, and in some cases has brought tornadoes to the region.

Two tornadoes reportedly touched down in North Carolina on Monday morning, as the region experienced heavy rainfall following the landfall of Hurricane Florence last week. Officials warned that more twisters could form imminently.

Tropical Depression Florence is still considered a dangerous storm even though it has been downgraded from its previous status as a hurricane, and officials in the Carolinas have been warning residents of potentially historic flooding as rain continues to hit the region. The death toll rose to 20 after police in Union County, North Carolina, announced that they had recovered the body of an elderly man in flood waters.

With the death toll rising, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper warned residents during a news conference that Florence has "never been more dangerous than it is right now".

"Wherever you live in North Carolina, be alert for sudden flooding," he said of the conditions, which saw widespread power outages over the weekend.

The National Weather Service issued multiple tornado warnings in Monday, after the two confirmed tornadoes hit the area, dealing major damage to at least one home, and minor damage to another.

The heavy rains have forced officials in the Carolinas to issue mandatory evacuation notices, especially near rivers and in flood zones where the downpour has slowly brought the water level higher over the weekend.

Florence was downgraded into a tropical depression on Sunday, after having made landfall in North Carolina on Friday with 90 mph winds. The storm essentially stopped moving after making landfall, instead swirling above the US and dropping major rains in the region.

That rainfall forced officials to order the evacuation of thousands of people, as the rivers rose towards record levels across the region.



 Soon after the storm made landfall, rescue workers began to receive calls and requests for help, with hundreds of people reporting they were stuck amid flooding in communities near the coast of North Carolina.

The rainfall is expected to raise the level of the Cape Fear river to a crest above the flood levels that were brought by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.</s>The death toll from Hurricane Florence had increased to 32 people on Tuesday morning, as officials rushed to get relief to a North Carolina city still largely marooned from the rest of the state by flood water.

The storm has claimed lives in three states, including 25 in North Carolina, according to a count by the Associated Press.

The victims include a one-year-old boy who was swept away after his mother drove into floodwaters and lost her grip on him while trying to get back to dry land in North Carolina.

Another man’s body was found in floodwaters next to his car in Union county, WSOC reported.

While rain was finally subsiding on Tuesday, the city of Wilmington remained largely cut off with thousands of people stranded.

Officials were preparing to distribute food, water and tarpaulins in the city of 120,000, as more people were rescued from flooded neighborhoods.

One road was opened into Wilmington briefly, and helicopters and military trucks were bringing relief supplies into the stranded city, where hundreds of people have been rescued from the roofs of flooded homes.

On Tuesday morning, more than 320,000 homes remained without power across North Carolina.

Fatalities from the storm include people who drowned, were electrocuted, or were hit by trees, according to the Charlotte Observer. One person was killed in Virginia by an apparent tornado whipped up by Florence, and six were killed in South Carolina.

Rescuers have saved about 700 people in New Hanover county, where Wilmington is located, and 2,600 people across the state.

Wilmington’s mayor, Bill Saffo, said he was working with the governor’s office to get more fuel into the city.

“At this time, things are moving as well as can be in the city,” he said. Downed trees and power lines still blocked many roads into the city.

North Carolina’s governor, Roy Cooper, warned that floodwaters would linger for days, and urged residents in the path of the hurricane who had evacuated not to return yet.

“There’s too much going on,” he said.

At the White House, Donald Trump said almost 20,000 military personnel and federal workers were deployed to help with the aftermath.

“We will do whatever it takes to keep the American people safe,” the president said.

Florence dumped close to 36 inches of rain, according to totals measured in Elizabethtown, North Carolina.

Long lines formed at gas stations to get fuel for cars as well as generators at homes where the main electricity supply was knocked out.

Four dams have been breached in North and South Carolina, CNN reported on Tuesday, as rivers continued to rise.</s>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to survey the impact of Hurricane Florence.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Tuesday confirmed Trump’s travel plans to North Carolina, which bore the brunt of the powerful storm.

Days after the hurricane rolled through, the region is dealing with massive flooding. In Wilmington, residents lined up by the hundreds for free food, water and tarps while officials managed to open a second route into the surrounded city.

Florence is being blamed for at least 34 deaths in three states.

Remnants of the once-powerful Category 4 hurricane are now a rainy, windy mass of low pressure. The system has speeded up on a path toward the heavily populated Northeast.</s>Hurricane Florence made landfall in the US last week, and has since brought flooding.

Hurricane Florence made landfall in the US last week, and has since brought flooding.

AT LEAST 20 people have been killed in the Carolinas as storm Florence continues to dump huge amounts of rain, and in some cases has brought tornadoes to the region.

Two tornadoes reportedly touched down in North Carolina on Monday morning, as the region experienced heavy rainfall following the landfall of Hurricane Florence last week. Officials warned that more twisters could form imminently.

Tropical Depression Florence is still considered a dangerous storm even though it has been downgraded from its previous status as a hurricane, and officials in the Carolinas have been warning residents of potentially historic flooding as rain continues to hit the region. The death toll rose to 20 after police in Union County, North Carolina, announced that they had recovered the body of an elderly man in flood waters.

With the death toll rising, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper warned residents during a news conference that Florence has "never been more dangerous than it is right now".

"Wherever you live in North Carolina, be alert for sudden flooding," he said of the conditions, which saw widespread power outages over the weekend.

The National Weather Service issued multiple tornado warnings in Monday, after the two confirmed tornadoes hit the area, dealing major damage to at least one home, and minor damage to another.

The heavy rains have forced officials in the Carolinas to issue mandatory evacuation notices, especially near rivers and in flood zones where the downpour has slowly brought the water level higher over the weekend.

Florence was downgraded into a tropical depression on Sunday, after having made landfall in North Carolina on Friday with 90 mph winds. The storm essentially stopped moving after making landfall, instead swirling above the US and dropping major rains in the region.

That rainfall forced officials to order the evacuation of thousands of people, as the rivers rose towards record levels across the region.



 Soon after the storm made landfall, rescue workers began to receive calls and requests for help, with hundreds of people reporting they were stuck amid flooding in communities near the coast of North Carolina.

The rainfall is expected to raise the level of the Cape Fear river to a crest above the flood levels that were brought by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.</s>Residential streets now look like rivers. Rivers like raging torrents. And parts of freeways — dotted with rescue boats — have morphed into free-flowing waterways.

That’s the reality in wide swaths of eastern North Carolina in the destructive wake of Hurricane Florence.

What is left of Florence is dragging itself north, dumping heavy rain as it moves into the southern Appalachian Mountains Monday morning.

The storm has already killed at least 18 people, trapped hundreds more and made parts of the Carolinas impassable. But authorities and forecasters say the worst flooding is yet to come.

The remnants of Florence, now a tropical depression, will likely dump another 2 to 5 inches of rain on central and southeastern North Carolina on Monday, CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said.

But even when the rain lets up, don’t be fooled. The big concern now is river water gushing downstream, further deluging already flooded communities.

Several North Carolina rivers, including the Neuse, Trent, and Cape Fear, will remain above and near record flood stage through the end of the week, exacerbating fears of more flood damage.

“Catastrophic and historic river flooding will continue for days across portions of the Carolinas,” the National Weather Service said.

Houses turn into islands in the Carolinas

The flooding is so bad in North Carolina that the state’s transportation department warned people not to travel in or through the state. Some interstates, including sections of I-95 and I-40, are closed.

Emergency workers have made at least 1,000 swift-water rescues in North Carolina by early Monday, the North Carolina Department of Public Safety said. But many more people need help.

Those trapped in floodwater could also be without power for days.

About 532,338 customers in North Carolina and 61,000 in South Carolina don’t have electricity. But the number of actual people without power is far greater, since a single customer can represent an entire family.

In Lumberton, North Carolina — a city submerged by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 — residents are bracing for potential disaster as the Lumber River seeps through a patched-up gap in the levee system.

By Sunday afternoon, the river had reached nearly 24 feet and was expected to crest around 25.7 feet. If the river gets higher than 26 feet, “all bets are off,” city public works deputy director Corey Walters said.

At one point Sunday afternoon, part of a makeshift barrier meant to plug a low point in the city’s main levee system gave way and river water leaked.

One family riding out the storm on the outskirts of Lumberton was content to leave their fate in God’s hands. “I just feel comfortable staying. We have our dogs and our property, so we stay,” 57-year-old Kenan Chance said.

Their homes are still damaged from Matthew, but they survived, members of the family said. Whether they stay or go, they’ll have damage to contend with.

Her father, 84-year-old Rembert Walters, says that if his relatives dispersed to different havens, he’d spend all his time worrying about them.

“We’re not going to move until this thing’s over. It’s going to wipe us out or kill us. Or bury us, or something,” he said as floodwater crept upon his porch. “‘Cause we don’t run every time this thing happened.”

Betty Walters says she has health issues that are hard to manage at a shelter. “It’s just better for us to stay at home,” she said. “I trust in the Lord. He calmed the waters and he’s going to look after us.”

A number of the shelters also accommodate pets, who are also at risk from rising floodwaters.

Freelance journalist Marcus DiPaola tweeted that he had been involved in the rescue of six dogs in Leland, North Carolina, after they were left locked in an outdoor cage.

“We got them out, but by the time we left, the water was so high that they would have drowned. BRING YOUR PETS WITH YOU! #HurricaneFlorence,” he wrote.

The coastal North Carolina city of Wilmington, population 117,000, is so deeply submerged that no one can get in — not even aid workers carrying fuel and critical supplies.

FEMA crews and power company trucks were turned away Saturday night because of the flooding, Mayor Bill Saffo said.

The Wilmington-based Cape Fear Public Utility Authority urged residents to fill bathtubs and containers with water in case the utility doesn’t have enough fuel to keep its water treatment plants running.

Nearby Pender County, north of Wilmington, also is running out of fuel, Commissioner Jackie Newton said. Near the community of Wards Corner in that county, US 421 was a virtual lake, with waters lapping up to homes on either side, video from a CNN crew showed.

The North Carolina attorney general’s office has received more than 500 complaints of price gouging — including for hotel rooms, gas and water. Authorities have launched investigations.

Causes of death include electrocution and fallen trees

The death toll from Florence rose Sunday, with authorities saying 18 deaths have been linked to the storm:

— A 3-month-old baby died after a tree fell on a mobile home in Dallas, North Carolina.

— A man died when a his truck hit an overpass support beam on Interstate 20 in Kershaw County, South Carolina.

— A man drowned in an overturned vehicle on a flooded road in Georgetown County, South Carolina.

— Three people died in flash flooding or swift water on roads in Duplin County, North Carolina

— Two people died in a storm-related fire in Cumberland County, North Carolina

— A mother and a child were killed when a tree fell on their house in Wilmington, North Carolina

— Two people died from carbon monoxide poisoning in Horry County, South Carolina.

— A woman in South Carolina died after striking a downed tree while she was driving.

— A woman suffered cardiac arrest in Hampstead, in North Carolina’s Pender County. When emergency responders tried to reach her their path was blocked by fallen trees.

— Another person died in Pender County, according to the county’s emergency management director. No details were immediately available.

— A man was killed while checking on his dogs in Lenoir County, North Carolina.

— Another man in Lenoir County was electrocuted while trying to connect two extension cords.

— An 81-year-old man fell and struck his head while packing to evacuate in Wayne County, North Carolina.

Where Florence’s remnants will go next

On Monday morning, Tropical Depression Florence was centered about 125 miles west southwest of Roanoke, Virginia, the National Weather Service said. It was moving north at 13 mph, whipping 30 mph winds.

Mountainous parts of southern Virginia are now at risk for flooding, mudslides and landslides due to Florence’s heavy rains on Monday, said Guy, the meteorologist.

The storm is expected to move north through the Charlottesville, Virginia, area before heading toward the Ohio Valley, hitting West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.

By Tuesday, Guy said, “the remnants of Florence will be pushed towards the Northeast where areas from Northern Pennsylvania through central New York towards Boston could pick up some heavy rain.”</s>At least 31 people have been killed as Florence battered the coast off North and South Carolina on Friday and into the weekend. North Carolina officials report 25 dead and South Carolina officials report six.

In one incident, a mother, 41, and her 7-month-old son were killed when a tree fell on their house in Wilmington. The father was also home, and he was taken to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center for treatment. Officials did not know his condition as of 3:30 p.m. Friday.

The family was trapped for several hours as firefighters tried to rescue them. The large size of the tree made it difficult, Wilmington Fire Department Chief Jon Mason said during a Friday afternoon press conference. Firefighters used heavy lifting, air bags and saws in what was an emotional rescue.

There have been numerous calls for fallen trees, according to officials, however they are not aware of any others where people are trapped.

The photo below shows firefighters praying at the scene.

Firefighters pray at an operation to remove a tree that fell on a house injuring resident during Hurricane Florence in Wilmington, North Carolina on September 14, 2018.

The third death happened in Hampstead, Pender County when a woman had a medical emergency and EMS crews could not get to her due to the storm, according to Tom Collins, Director of Emergency Management. She died Friday morning.

There have been two fatalities in Kinston as a result of Hurricane Florence, according to Lenoir County Emergency Services Director Roger Dail.

A 68-year-old man was electrocuted at a residence on Silver Smith Circle Friday morning when he was trying to connect two extension cords outside in the rain. His body was discovered by family members.

A 77-year-old man was found dead at 8 a.m. Friday by his family at his home on Middle Street in Kinston. Officials believe he died of a cardiac event when he went outside to check on his hunting dogs late Thursday night, according to the NC State Emergency Response team.

Both deaths were reported to the State Medical Examiner’s Office by the Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office.

Officials in South Carolina reported the state's first fatality due to Florence on Saturday. 61-year-old Amber Dawn Lee was killed late Friday when her vehicle struck a tree that had fallen across the highway. No passengers were in the vehicle at the time of the crash, and Captain Kelley Hughes of the South Carolina Highway Patrol said that the woman was wearing her seatbelt.

Four people were killed in flash flooding and swift water on roadways in Duplin County, NC, the Duplin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed. Three people died in separate vehicles on Saturday and one person died during a water rescue on Friday, the Sheriff's Office said.

An 81-year-old man fell and struck his head while packing to evacuate Wayne County, NC on Friday, according to a release from the NC State Emergency Response team.

A 68-year-old man and his wife died in a house fire in Cumberland County, NC on Friday, according to a release from the NC State Emergency Response team. Preliminary reports indicate that the fire was caused by a candle being used while the power was out, NCPD confirmed.

61-year-old Debra Collins RIon and 63-year-old Mark Carter King died from carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator used in their home. The Horry County Coroner's Office said that they were found in their home on Saturday afternoon, and died Friday night.

A fatal collision on Saturday morning left two injured and one dead in Georgetown County, SC. According to the South Carolina Department of Public Safety, a pick-up truck drove into standing water on the road and lost control, overturning into a ditch. Two people were transported to the hospital. 23-year-old Michael Dalton was pronounced dead at the scene. The conditions and identity of the two transported to the hospital were not immediately available.

The South Carolina Department of Public Safety reported a fatal collision in Kershaw County on Sunday morning. The driver of a pick-up truck died at the scene when the vehicle traveled off the roadway, striking an overpass support beam.

A driver in a pickup truck drove standing water and lost control of the vehicle near Gilbert, SC on Sunday morning, according to the South Carolina Department of Public Safety. The vehicle hit a tree, and the driver died at the scene.

A 3-month-old child died Sunday afternoon after a tree fell on a mobile home in Gaston County, NC, according to the county commissioner Tracy Philbeck. The family shared a photo of the baby, Kade Gill, with NBC Charlotte. They said his mother was holding him when the tree came crashing down. The mother was rushed to the hospital and was in stable condition.

Also in Gaston County, a 25-year-old man who was a passenger in an SUV died on Saturday while not wearing a seat belt.

1-year-old boy swept away by floodwaters in NC

Officials found the body one-year-old Kaiden Lee Welch Monday morning. He was swept away by floodwaters Sunday night. Deputies said that a woman drove through the barricades in North Carolina, and her vehicle encountered rushing water flowing across the road. The woman left the roadway and came to a rest among a group of trees. Her son was in a car seat, and was swept away when his mother lost her grip on him. The mother has been rescued.

The body of an 88-year-old man has been recovered in Marshville, NC after floodwaters receded, according to police on site. The Union County Sheriff's Office announced Monday that a passing motorist found the body. The man was driving across a flooded road when his car ran off the road. His car window was down, indicating he might have tried to get out of the car, according to authorities.

A one-year-old child died while in a vehicle that was washed off the road on Sunday.

The body of a 52-year-old man was discovered on the back porch of a house damaged by the storm on Saturday. A 37-year-old man died in a car crash after hydroplaning across the yellow line and hitting another car.

A 73-year-old man died from respiratory complications after his house lost power and could not longer use his oxygen concentrator. Another man collapsed and died while trying to assist an evacuee. He was 62.

A 61-year-old man died while evacuating from Wilmington on a moped this Sunday.

A 56-year-old man died after his tractor-trailer hydroplaned and ran off the road this Sunday.

A body was recovered from a discovered vehicle that had washed off the road on Monday.

A 73-year-old man and a 65-year-old man after their cars were submerged in Scotland County, NC. They were in separate cars.

An 83-year-old man died in a car crash in a washed out roadway and collided with a cement culvert. No other vehicles were involved in the crash.

Several tornadoes were reported Monday afternoon in central and southern Virginia. One person was killed after a building collapsed in Chesterfield, Va.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this article reported two deaths in Carteret County, North Carolina. The Carteret Country Sheriff's Department confirmed that these two deaths initially reported as a result of Florence were a result of an apparent murder-suicide.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to survey the impact of Hurricane Florence.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Tuesday confirmed Trump's travel plans to North Carolina, which bore the brunt of the powerful storm.

Days after the hurricane rolled through, the region is dealing with massive flooding. In Wilmington, residents lined up by the hundreds for free food, water and tarps while officials opened up to the public two routes that had previously been impassable.

Florence is being blamed for at least 34 deaths in three states.

Remnants of the once-powerful Category 4 hurricane are now a rainy, windy mass of low pressure. The system has speeded up on a path toward the heavily populated Northeast.</s>Rain-gorged rivers threatened further flooding in storm-battered North Carolina on Monday as the death toll from Hurricane Florence, now a tropical depression, rose to 23.

"River flooding is dynamic and it's happening all over our state," North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told reporters.

"This is an epic storm that is still continuing," Cooper said. "This is a monumental disaster for our state."

A tornado watch was issued for parts of North and South Carolina as emergency management officials also warned of the potential for dam failures and landslides.

Cooper said there have been 17 confirmed storm-related deaths in North Carolina from Florence, which made landfall on the state's Atlantic coast on Friday as a Category 1 hurricane. "We hope there are not more," he said.

At least six deaths have been confirmed in neighboring South Carolina with the latest being the driver of a pickup truck who drove into standing water in Lexington County.

More than a dozen rivers across North Carolina were at major flood stage on Monday or threatening to rise to critical levels.

"Many roads in our state are still at risk of floods," Cooper said, warning people who have been evacuated not to return home yet and others not to go out if they do not need to. "Please don't make yourself someone who needs to be rescued," he said.

Wilmington, on the banks of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, was almost completely cut off by land but emergency management teams managed to truck food and water overnight into the port city of 120,000 people.

North Carolina emergency department officials said 23 truckloads of Meals, Ready to Eat -- packaged U.S. military rations -- and crates of bottled water had been sent into Wilmington.

"We're dealing with some very, very tough situations with respect to the impassable roads coming into the city of Wilmington," Mayor Bill Saffo told residents on Twitter. "As the water recedes things will get better.

"We're going to be OK," Saffo said. "We're going to get through this."

The National Weather Service released rainfall totals as of 2:00 pm (1800 GMT) for parts of North Carolina. The largest amount so far was in Elizabethtown, which has received 35.93 inches (0.91 meters).

The most rainfall recorded in South Carolina was in the town of Loris, where 23.81 inches (0.6 meters) fell.

More than 300 people remained Monday morning at a shelter on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Raleigh, the state capital which escaped the brunt of the storm.

Thomas Hammett, of Otway, North Carolina, said he has been in the shelter for nearly a week with his two children, Jerry, 11, Christopher, three.

"We had to evacuate. It was too dangerous to stay," Hammett said. "Some people have died down there."

"The neighbors told us our home was fine apart from a few branches down, so that's a relief at least," he added.

"We can't wait to go back home and live a normal life again, hopefully on Wednesday."

In Fayetteville, the Cape Fear River was expected to reach major flood stage at 58 feet (17.6 meters) on Monday and to hit nearly 62 feet (18.9 meters) on Tuesday before receding.

More than half a million customers in the Carolinas were still without electricity on Monday, according to emergency officials.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that Florence continues to dump heavy rain on parts of North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina.

"Flash flooding will continue over portions of the western mid-Atlantic regions," the NHC said.

The National Weather Service said there is an "elevated risk for landslides" in North Carolina. State officials said there had been a small dam breach that did not cause any significant damage and they were monitoring other structures closely.

Numerous roads across eastern North Carolina were blocked by fallen trees and flooding including parts of I-95, a major north-south artery.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen visited North Carolina on Monday to discuss the response and recovery efforts and tour flood-affected areas.

President Donald Trump has also announced plans to visit the flood-hit region this week but a date has not yet been set.

"We're going to need significant resources to recover," Cooper, the North Carolina governor, said.</s>Hurricane Florence made landfall in the US last week, and has since brought flooding.

Hurricane Florence made landfall in the US last week, and has since brought flooding.

AT LEAST 20 people have been killed in the Carolinas as storm Florence continues to dump huge amounts of rain, and in some cases has brought tornadoes to the region.

Two tornadoes reportedly touched down in North Carolina on Monday morning, as the region experienced heavy rainfall following the landfall of Hurricane Florence last week. Officials warned that more twisters could form imminently.

Tropical Depression Florence is still considered a dangerous storm even though it has been downgraded from its previous status as a hurricane, and officials in the Carolinas have been warning residents of potentially historic flooding as rain continues to hit the region. The death toll rose to 20 after police in Union County, North Carolina, announced that they had recovered the body of an elderly man in flood waters.

With the death toll rising, North Carolina governor Roy Cooper warned residents during a news conference that Florence has "never been more dangerous than it is right now".

"Wherever you live in North Carolina, be alert for sudden flooding," he said of the conditions, which saw widespread power outages over the weekend.

The National Weather Service issued multiple tornado warnings in Monday, after the two confirmed tornadoes hit the area, dealing major damage to at least one home, and minor damage to another.

The heavy rains have forced officials in the Carolinas to issue mandatory evacuation notices, especially near rivers and in flood zones where the downpour has slowly brought the water level higher over the weekend.

Florence was downgraded into a tropical depression on Sunday, after having made landfall in North Carolina on Friday with 90 mph winds. The storm essentially stopped moving after making landfall, instead swirling above the US and dropping major rains in the region.

That rainfall forced officials to order the evacuation of thousands of people, as the rivers rose towards record levels across the region.



 Soon after the storm made landfall, rescue workers began to receive calls and requests for help, with hundreds of people reporting they were stuck amid flooding in communities near the coast of North Carolina.

The rainfall is expected to raise the level of the Cape Fear river to a crest above the flood levels that were brought by Hurricane Matthew in 2016.</s>The death toll left in the path of what began as Hurricane Florence along the southeastern coast of the United States increased to 18 with the death of a baby after a tree fell on the infant's home, media reports said Monday.

The 3-month-old baby could not recover from the injuries suffered when a pine tree crashed onto the family's mobile home Sunday afternoon, a commissioner of Gaston County in North Carolina said.

This was the second death of a baby caused by Florence - another died on Friday together with its mother when a tree fell on a home in Wilmington, a city near the area where Florence made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane with winds of up to 90 mph (150 kph).

On Sunday another three people died in separate highway accidents due to the bad weather and road conditions produced by Florence, local authorities said.

The hurricane, which has weakened to a tropical depression, is moving through the western region of the state of Virginia with winds of up to 30 mph (50 kph).

Florence is moving rapidly in a northeasterly direction and will bring intense rains Monday to New York state and New England.

At the same time its rainstorms will continue in North Carolina, northeastern South Carolina and West Virginia.

This will raise the water level of several rivers in the region that threaten to overflow their banks, which will again endanger area residents, authorities warned.

In its latest Florence bulletin, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that flood warnings remain in force for a large part of the southeastern coast of the country.
The death toll rises to at least 32, as flooding continues to inundate North Carolina.