The worst hurricanes to hit the Carolina coast 065106 02: A man stands in a partially destroyed house September 27, 1989 in South Carolina. Hugo is ranked as the eleventh most intense hurricane to strike the US this century and is rated the second costliest with over seven billion dollars in damages. (Photo by Alan Weiner/Liaison) FROM EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY ASTRONAUT ALEXANDER GERST: Watch out, America! #HurricaneFlorence is so enormous, we could only capture her with a super wide-angle lens from the @Space_Station, 400 km directly above the eye. Get prepared on the East Coast, this is a no-kidding nightmare coming for you. #Horizons CLEARED: All platforms/affils COURTESY: Alexander Gerst/ESA PHOTOS: https://twitter.com/Astro_Alex/status/1039870760343543814 NS Slug: NC:FLORENCE-RIVER FLOODING REACHES WINDOWS (STRONG) Synopsis: Video of flooding from the Pungo River in Belhaven, NC, which has risen dramatically due to Hurricane Florence Video Shows: Video of flooding from the Pungo River in Belhaven, NC, which has risen dramatically due to Hurricane Florence Keywords: HURRICANE FLORENCE SOUTHEAST UNITED STATES SEVERE WEATHER STORM John Berman: My mic cord just split in two Susan Bostic and her grandson Tyler evacuate her home in Rocky Point, NC. Trump asks about golf course area after flood President Donald Trump visits the Temple Baptist Church, where food and other supplies are being distributed during Hurricane Florence recovery efforts, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018, in New Bern, N.C. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) See inside the storm day by day Michael Nelson floats in a boat made from a metal tub and fishing floats after the Neuse River went over its banks and flooded his street during Hurricane Florence September 13, 2018 in New Bern, North Carolina. Some parts of New Bern could be flooded with a possible 9-foot storm surge as the Category 2 hurricane approaches the United States. See Florence's destruction in the Carolinas Editor’s Note: Are you affected by Tropical Storm Florence? When it’s safe, text, iMessage or WhatsApp your videos, photos and stories to CNN: 347-322-0415 (CNN) — At least five people, including a mother and her infant, have died in North Carolina as Tropical Storm Florence slowly moved from the Tar Heel State into South Carolina, officials said Friday. After coming ashore in North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane, Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm Friday afternoon and trudged into South Carolina as night came. Two people died in Wilmington after a tree fell on their house, the city’s police department said. “WPD can confirm the first two fatalities of Hurricane #Florence in Wilmington. A mother and infant were killed when a tree fell on their house,” police tweeted Friday afternoon. “The father was transported to (New Hanover Regional Medical Center) with injuries.” Alex Wroblewski/Bloomberg/Getty Images Emergency responders pray in front of a home after removing bodies that had been trapped by a fallen tree. The hospital said it has received three injured patients. In the town of Hampstead, emergency responders going to a call for cardiac arrest Friday morning found their path blocked by downed trees. When they got to the home, the woman was deceased, Chad McEwen, assistant county manager for Pender County, said. The fourth person who died was a man in Lenoir County who was hooking up a generator, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office said. Another man in the county who was checking on his dogs outside was killed in what his family thought was a wind-related death Friday morning, emergency officials said. Florence was inching along Friday night, trapping people in flooded homes and promising days of destruction and human suffering. Storm surges, punishing winds and rain are turning some towns into rushing rivers – and the storm is expected to crawl over parts of the Carolinas into the weekend, pounding some of the same areas over and over. Billy Sample, a resident stuck in the town of Carolina Beach, North Carolina, said Friday night: “The height of the storm didn’t feel as bad as it is now. The house is shaking back and forth much more violently than when the eyewall came through.” Sample said that when he looked outside of his house, which is about 1,000 yards from the beach, he saw the rain pooling up on the street and what looked like storm surge coming up the road. In the besieged city of New Bern, rescuers had plucked more than 200 people from rising waters by midmorning Friday, but about 150 more had to wait as conditions worsened and a storm surge reached 10 feet, officials said. That number was down to 40 later in the day. Follow the storm’s path Key developments • Florence’s location: By 11 p.m., Florence’s center was moving west-southwest through South Carolina at 5 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph. The center was about 20 miles north-northeast of Myrtle Beach. Gradual weakening was expected Friday night, the hurricane center said. CNN • Prolonged, dangerous winds: Tropical storm-force winds extend 175 miles from Florence’s center. The storm is expected to lumber into far southeastern North Carolina and eastern South Carolina through Saturday, punishing the area with rain and damaging winds. • No electricity: There were 788,916 homes and businesses without power Friday night, according to the North Carolina Emergency Management agency. • Flooding for miles: Up to 40 inches of rain, and storm surges pushing water inland and not allowing rivers to drain, “will produce catastrophic flash flooding and prolonged significant river flooding,” the National Hurricane Center says. “You’re going to have flooding miles and miles inland,” the center’s director, Ken Graham, said. Some areas of South Carolina could see rainfall totals of up to 15 inches, forecasters said. • Record gusts: Wilmington’s airport recorded a 105-mph wind gust – the fastest measured since Hurricane Helene hit the city in 1958, the National Hurricane Center said. Later Friday, a wind gust of 68 mph was measured at a station in Wrightsville Beach, near Wilmington. • Nuclear plant shutdown: A nuclear power plant in Brunswick, North Carolina, shut down operations because of the storm, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Twitter.<doc-sep>A resident for several years, Essence Keys, 25, managed to get her two little boys to her grandmother’s house on Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon, she looked out the window to see water out front. Walking outside, it was up to her ankles. She managed to get her 7-year-old’s dirt bike off the ground, but she had time for little else; a friend had come to pick her up and take her to work. “When I was walking out my back door, the water was already coming in my front door,” she said. She left her flooded apartment for her shift at a nursing home. It was a particularly hectic shift, since residents of another nursing home had been brought to this one, while some of her co-workers were dealing with their own flooded homes. [Here are five ways to avoid the risks associated with floodwaters.] She worked on Thursday, spent the night at the home, and is back at work until Friday afternoon. When the shift ends, she hopes to go get her children, whom she has not heard from for more than a day. Her grandmother has no power and no cellphone, and is in a part of town with water in the streets. Back at Trent Court, people she knows talk of water up to the fourth or fifth step in the staircases leading up from the first floor. “I don’t have nothing but the clothes that I had on yesterday,” Ms. Keys said. Read more about the flooding in New Bern. A warning that the threat is going to last for days Governor Cooper painted a grim picture of the destruction Florence was inflicting. Wind gusts as high as 105 m.p.h. had been recorded near Wilmington. The State Highway Patrol had responded to 30 vehicle collisions and more than 100 calls for help. Hundreds of rescues had taken place already, and more were underway. Several state roads remained underwater and impassable in the coastal area. [ Read about how to make an emergency kit, plan ahead and stay informed.] The governor warned of forecasts that predicted 1,000-year rainfall in some areas — rainfall so severe it has a one-in-a-thousand chance of occurring in any given year. The state’s rivers are rising, and will continue to rise, in some places to record levels, Mr. Cooper said. The ground is already saturated by recent rains, he said, raising the risk of flash flooding. He expected mudslides and rockslides as the storm moved inland. “It’s getting worse,” Mr. Cooper said.<doc-sep>Governor Roy Cooper said in a press release Tuesday that two more deaths have been confirmed as a result of Hurricane Florence, making the death toll 39 in North Carolina.The latest fatalities include a 47-year-old man found dead outside a Duplin County home on Sept. 21 due to a head injury sustained when he fell from a ladder while repairing storm damage and a 69-year-old man in Pender County who died on Sept. 22 after falling from a roof while cleaning storm debris and repairing damage. "Florence cut a broad path of death and destruction through our state and we will not soon forget this storm or the lives it claimed," Gov. Cooper said. "For people working to recover, applying with FEMA is the single most important thing you can do. If you suffered damage from Florence, make sure you apply for assistance right away. "While the death toll in North Carolina stands at 39, other deaths occurred in South Carolina and Virginia.In South Carolina, two detainees drowned when a van was swept away in rising floodwaters.Authorities in Virginia said one person was dead after an apparent tornado, the first fatality attributed to Florence not in the Carolinas.During the storm, the body of a 1-year-old was found in Union County. His mother had escaped her car with him after the vehicle was washed away by floodwaters , but then she lost her grip and the boy was swept away, authorities said.In South Carolina, officials are investigating after a man drove into standing water on Pond Branch Road near Gilbert and died.A husband and wifeare also counted among the dead from Florence.Two deaths were previously reported in Duplin County. The Duplin County Sheriff's Office did not say exactly how the pair died; however, they said their deaths were related to flash flooding and swift water on roadways.In Wilmington, a 41-year-old woman and her 8-month-old baby were killed after a tree fell on their home after Hurricane Florence made landfall in the Carolinas. Police identified the woman as Lesha Patrice Johnson.The father, Adam Zachary Johnson, 48, was transported to a hospital for treatment.Lenoir County officials said a 68-year-old man was electrocuted at a home when he attempted to connect two extension cords outside in the rain. His body was discovered by family members.In Kinston, a 77-year-old man was found dead Friday at his home on Middle Street. It is believed his death was caused when he was blown down by the wind when he went out to check on his hunting dogs.In Wayne County, an 81-year-old man died when he fell and struck his head while packing to evacuate Friday.According to Pender County Emergency Management Director Tom Collins, a woman in Hampstead died of a heart attack. Emergency crews were unable to get to her because of a downed tree in the road.<doc-sep>One of these hurricanes, many worry, will expose the Outer Banks for what they have always been: “Basically just a sand bar,” in the words of John Trubich, who lives in the northern town of Kitty Hawk. Trubich contemplated that not-so-distant future at the Food Lion as he picked up supplies to get him through the next few days. “Mother Nature made the Outer Banks just by pushing sand around. It’ll eventually be washed away,” Trubich said. “Hopefully not in my lifetime.”<doc-sep>
A mother and her infant child were killed when a tree fell on their house in North Carolina – the first of at least four reported fatalities of Hurricane Florence. Police in the city of Wilmington, located on the coast where the storm blew ashore on Friday morning, confirmed the individuals were killed when a tree fell on the home in Mercer Avenue. Media said emergency crews had been working to save the pair, but their efforts were in vain; a man – the husband and father of the victims – was also hurt and transported to hospital. As news of the deaths was confirmed, emergency crews from the fire department knelt and prayed outside the house, a moment captured by NBC journalist Lester Holt. “A remarkably touching scene in Wilmington NC as firefighters huddle in prayer for 2 victims in partial house collapse,” he wrote. Some time after that, a third and fourth fatality were reported. The city’s police force had initially confirmed it was working to free people from a house where a tree had fallen. Reports said the emergency team had with them an specialist in performing amputations, should that have been required. Shortly afterwards, it posted another tweet that read: “WPD can confirm the first two fatalities of Hurricane #Florence in Wilmington. A mother and infant were killed when a tree fell on their house. The father was transported to New Hanover Regional Medical Centre with injuries.” ✕ Hurricane Florence winds rip American flag to pieces The city of Wilmington, which has a population of just under 120,000, is a few miles from Wrightsville Beach, where Hurricane Florence came ashore at 7.15am. At that point, according to the National Hurricane Centre (NHC), the storm had winds of a relatively modest 90mph and had been downgraded to a category 1 storm. Yet the centre said it still bore with it the threat of “catastrophic” freshwater flooding.