Rescuers keep busy in Carolinas; aid reaches city trapped by flooding

Willie Schubert is hoisted aboard a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter after he was rescued off a stranded van Monday in Pollocksville, N.C.
Willie Schubert is hoisted aboard a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter after he was rescued off a stranded van Monday in Pollocksville, N.C.

WILMINGTON, N.C. -- Emergency workers rushed into beleaguered cities in the Carolinas on Monday as residents struggled with the aftermath of a storm that damaged tens of thousands of homes, drenched the area with record rains and triggered floodwaters that are not expected to recede for days.

Wilmington, a city of about 120,000 residents, was virtually cut off.

Water levels were rising in some places Monday as rainfall from the storm -- which made landfall as a hurricane and then swamped the region even as it weakened -- pushed rivers over their banks. Authorities and volunteers in North and South Carolina carried out additional rescues by air and water, curfews were in effect, and many thousands of people remained out of their homes.

The zipping winds and pounding rains were largely replaced Monday by a different soundtrack: roaring helicopters that delivered supplies to Wilmington; leaf blowers and chain saws for cleanups in Charlotte; and the soft swirl of the still-rising Cape Fear River as it flowed under the Person Street Bridge and menaced Fayetteville.

In some places, the rain finally stopped, and the sun peeked through, but North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned that dangerously high water would persist for days. He urged residents who were evacuated from the hardest-hit areas to stay away because of closed roads and catastrophic flooding that submerged entire communities.

"There's too much going on," he told a news conference.

"This remains a significant disaster that affects much of our state," Cooper said Monday afternoon. "The next few days will be long ones as the flooding continues."

Authorities have blamed the storm for at least 31 deaths, including that of a 1-year-old boy who slipped out of his mother's hands near Charlotte after their car became stuck in floodwater Sunday evening.

Evacuation orders were still being issued as rivers rose and dams were tested. Authorities in Hoke County, west of Fayetteville, told residents late Sunday to flee "due to the possible breach of the dam."

Parts of several rivers -- including the Cape Fear, Little, Neuse and Rocky -- were already in "major flood" stage and were rising. Flash-flood watches and warnings were in effect in many North Carolina towns, as well as in parts of South Carolina. Road closings were extensive, including to parts of Interstates 40 and 95.

Emergency officials had difficulty keeping up with the scope of the spreading disaster. In Lumberton, N.C., where the Lumber River inundated homes, Fire Chief John Paul Ivey couldn't even count how many calls authorities had received about people needing to be rescued.

"We've been going so hard and fast we don't have a number yet," he said.

The center of the depression was about 240 miles west of Charlottesville, Va., on Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Forecasters expect the storm to produce "heavy and excessive" rainfall over the next couple of days as it moves northeast toward New England and the Atlantic.

Preliminary statistics from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration showed Florence had the fourth-highest rainfall total of any hurricane to hit the U.S. mainland since 1950, with 35.94 inches at Elizabethtown, N.C. Harvey's total of 60.58 inches last year in Texas is No. 1.

The scope of the storm's might posed substantial challenges for authorities through much of the Carolinas, but officials were particularly focused on Wilmington. Although some trucks with supplies were able to make it into the marooned city early Monday, the uncertainty of road conditions led authorities to order helicopters to fly more resources into Wilmington.

About two dozen truckloads of military Meals, Ready-to-Eat, commonly know as MREs, and bottled water were delivered overnight to Wilmington, the state's eighth-largest city, officials said.

The chairman of New Hanover County's commissioners, Woody White, said three centers would open by this morning to begin distributing essentials to residents.

"Things are getting better slowly, and we thank God for that," White said.

Mayor Bill Saffo said he was working with the governor's office to get more fuel into Wilmington.

"At this time, things are moving as well as can be in the city," he said.

Crews have conducted about 700 rescues in New Hanover County, where more than 60 percent of homes and businesses were without power, authorities said.

Also cut off for a time was a nuclear power plant 30 miles south of Wilmington, which prompted the plant's operator, Duke Energy, to declare an "unusual event," the lowest-level emergency tracked by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

But workers at the Brunswick nuclear station were able to find a back road in and out of the plant, a commission spokesman, Joey Ledford, said. Regulators said there were no immediate safety concerns at the plant's two reactors, which Duke shut down before the storm, and no flooding had been reported at the site itself.

Even as rescue workers, both from the government and volunteer groups, pulled more people from the water, the death toll increased, including 24 fatalities in North Carolina. Outside Charlotte, officials recovered the body of Kaiden Lee Welch, the 1-year-old who fell out of his mother's arms on a flooded highway Sunday night.

The Union County sheriff's office said in a statement that the mother drove around a barrier and into the rushing water, which swept the car off the road and into a tree. The woman managed to free herself and her son, "who was in a car seat, but lost her grip on him in the rushing water," the sheriff's office said.

Elsewhere in North Carolina, an 88-year-old man died after his car was swept away. Authorities in Virginia said one person was dead after an apparent tornado.

At the White House, President 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," Trump said.

Information for this article was contributed by David Zucchino, Alan Blinder and Tyler Pager of The New York Times; and by Chuck Burton, Martha Waggoner; Steve Helber, Jonathan Drew, Gary Robertson and Jay Reeves of The Associated Press.

A Section on 09/18/2018

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