Florence death toll rises to at least 15 as more drenching rains fall
Officials warn residents of North Carolina that ‘the worst is yet to come’
Florence drenched North Carolina with yet more rain on Sunday and officials warned residents that “the worst is yet to come” from a storm that has killed at least 15 people, including 10 in North Carolina and five in South Carolina, as rivers inland were likely to flood.
Florence, which crashed into the state as a hurricane on Friday, had weakened to a tropical depression by Sunday morning but was forecast to drop another 13 to 25cm (5 to 10 inches) of rain in North Carolina, bringing rainfall totals in some inland areas to 15 to 20 inches and even more in some places, according to the National Hurricane Centre.
The most rain so far from Florence was 86cm (33.9 inches) in Swansboro, North Carolina, a record for a single hurricane in the state. The previous record was 61cm (24 inches), set by Hurricane Floyd, which killed 56 people in 1999, said Bryce Link, a meteorologist with private forecasting service DTN Marine Weather.
In North Carolina, more than 900 people were rescued from rising floodwaters and 15,000 remained in shelters, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told a news conference on Sunday.
At least 10 people have died so far in the storm in North Carolina, including a mother and child killed by a falling tree, state officials said. Four people died in South Carolina, including a woman whose car hit a fallen tree.