LUMBERTON, N.C. – Early Tuesday, flash flood warnings remained in effect in Moore County, northwest of here, where evacuations were underway late last night after residents were warned that a dam on Lake Surf could fail.
“Move to higher ground now,” said a report issued by the National Weather Service.
A day earlier, rescuers in North Carolina were pulling scores of people from rising waters, plucking them from rooftops with helicopters or corralling them into half-submerged military vehicles in what officials here called an increasingly worrying crisis.
Towns across the state have been deluged with record flooding after Hurricane Matthew, paralyzing roadways, blackening power grids and leaving some communities stranded, with no easy way to call for help. The full scope of disaster could take days to assess, if not much longer.
Here in Robeson County, an impoverished inland area, rescue workers were scrambling to reach more than 1,000 people, many of them in a neighborhood of small apartment complexes and public housing.
By the afternoon, rescue units had reached many, depositing them at a staging area where they held dripping suitcases, plastic bags of clothing and portable breathing machines.
“But this could still get a lot worse,” said John Locklear, a local volunteer firefighter who was driving one of the military vehicles. “Each house is gonna 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 the hurricane’s delayed blow, coming as rainfall rushed into larger bodies of water and overwhelmed levees and drainage systems.
In Robeson, the Lumber River was a record 24 feet above its usual level, half-swallowing the southern part of Lumberton, the county seat. In that area, garbage cans and 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.”
The death toll rose to 11 Monday afternoon when a 75-year-old man was found drowned in his car in Fayetteville after floodwaters began to recede, and officials feared more bodies await them. North Carolina’s emergency response center said 2,052 rescues had been performed statewide by nightfall Monday.
The Lumber River rose to 24 feet upstream of the city before the river gauge failed on Sunday afternoon. In the city itself, the river appears to have crested at nearly 22 feet and is maintaining that level, about four feet higher than the previous record. The Weather Service said on Monday that the levee that protects Lumberton did not fail, rather, the flood water west of Interstate 95 was so high that it was flowing around the levee and into the city through a highway underpass.
While speaking at a news conference, Gov. Pat McCrory said it doesn’t matter whether the levee was breached. “The results are the same,” he said. “To the people below the levee it doesn’t make much difference.”
Though Hurricane Matthew approached Florida with Category 4 strength, this part of the region was caught off guard. Last Friday, the Weather Service predicted 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 only 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, one of the state’s worst natural disasters. That 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 damages, leaving thousands without homes and keeping communities underwater for days and weeks. President Obama on Monday declared a major disaster in the state, which could help speed up federal aid available to affected residents.
Even before Matthew, North Carolina’s soil was already saturated. Then some parts of the state saw more than 17 inches of rain in a day. The subsequent flooding has forced miles-long sections of interstates 95 and 40 to be closed. Schools have canceled classes. Grocery stores are shuttered. Some towns, like Lumberton, have no running water. Statewide, hundreds of thousands of people are without power.
Towns including Kinston, Goldsboro, Greenville and Rocky Mount are expected to see record flooding, displacing thousands of residents.
McCrory said the storm will have long-term consequences for much of the state.
“It’s going to be a long tough journey,” he said, adding that major initial impacts from the storm will continue through next weekend.
In the flooded section of Lumberton, rescuers have been working around the clock. Locklear said he went to sleep Monday morning at 1:30 and then was awakened two hours later by his beeper. By the early afternoon, he’d spent a long shift without eating behind the steering wheel of a 2½-ton cargo truck, and his Motorola beeped with distress calls and the back-and-forth of rescuers.
We’ve got an elderly person who can’t get out.
Have you got a rescue crew that can respond to this one?
We have a family trapped.
They’re on the rooftop?
Locklear navigated through several feet of water for five minutes and pulled up to W.H. Knuckles Elementary School, where a dozen people were trapped. His crew dropped a ladder into the water and the back of the cargo truck filled with people, who were then ushered to several evacuation shelters because they had nowhere else to go and nowhere else to eat. In Robeson, the poverty rate is 33 percent, more than double the national average, and several who were rescued mentioned with frustration that the flood zone seemed to cut across racial lines; a wealthier, whiter part of Lumberton emerged unscathed, other than some fallen trees.
Reese Thompson, 40, woke up Monday to find his bedroom shoes floating away on one foot of water. He grabbed only his headphones and an Oakland A’s hat. “I said it’s about time to get on up out of this house,” he said.
Barbara Mitchell, 52, had been scheduled for knee surgery this week; she’d only grabbed enough medication to last through Thursday.
Doreen Howell, 43, arrived at an evacuation shelter here with only a pocketbook, some medication, a pair of jeans, and a T-shirt saying Love One Another. Her Reeboks were soaked, and she reclined barefoot in a folding chair in a rec center gymnasium. Overnight, 260 had arrived in a space designed for 100. And now children chased one another and dribbled basketballs. Six state championship banners hung from a wall.
“It’s loud,” Howell said. “I’m not ready for conditions like this.”
She sagged her shoulders and talked briefly about the things she’d lost in the flooding. A television, a computer, her clothing, her family photos. A home, first purchased by her mother, that she’d lived in since 1989. A 2007 Toyota Camry that she paid off early, using money from her job as a debt collector.
“There’s pretty much not going to be anything left,” Howell said. “I’m starting over from scratch.”
The Tar River at Rocky Mount crested seven feet above flood stage on Sunday night but is expected to remain in major flood stage until Tuesday evening. Sunday’s crest is the second highest for the city behind Hurricane Floyd.
The city warned residents that it was “experiencing elevated flood levels, resulting in road closings, cancellations and rescues.” A police official said Monday afternoon he did not know of anyone stranded at that moment – following 500 rescues since Saturday by the fire department.
Authorities pleaded with residents to be careful and to never drive through standing water.
“We are still asking all drivers to remain vigilant and not to drive around barricades,” Mayor David Combs said in a statement. Combs had declared a state of emergency in Rocky Mount on Sunday.
Downstream from Rocky Mount, Greenville is likely to be inundated by this flooding 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 waters continue rising in the Tar 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.
There were no people believed to be stranded so far in Greenville, a spokeswoman for the city’s fire department said Monday afternoon. “We are hoping that everybody’s out,” Rebekah Thurston said. “The water is beginning to rise.”
East Carolina University in Greenville has canceled class for the remainder of the week.
South of Greenville, the Neuse River runs through the city of Kinston. Forecasters expected it to crest at 26.3 feet, just over one foot shy of the record set during Hurricane Floyd. Early Tuesday, the National Weather Service reported that the river fell below flood stage near Clayton.
Even so, Pagano said the flooding in Kinston will be comparable to the 1999 storm.
The Black River hit a record high at Tomahauk on Monday afternoon. Michael Moneypenny, a hydrologist at the Weather Service, said that the river is expected to rise another foot in Sampson County before beginning to recede.
“It’s really flat there,” Moneypenny said. “I cannot imagine how many thousands of acres are flooded.”
Susan Holder, a spokesperson for Sampson County, said there is significantly limited access in and out of the county. There is infrastructure damage to major thoroughfares, she said, and the power outages have been extensive. “That leads to isolation as much as the lack of roadways do,” Holder added.
Holder said the state emergency management office was supportive leading up to Hurricane Matthew, but she was still caught off guard by the severity of the situation.
“We’ve just simply never seen this much flooding this quickly,” Holder said. “We expected the rain, and we expected the flooding – just not this fast.”
All major roads on the south side of Kinston will be flooded, with two feet of water likely on Highway 70. Numerous homes and businesses will be flooded, especially on the south side of the city, according to officials.
Kinston, along with Lenoir County, issued a mandatory evacuation order for residents and businesses along the Neuse River in that county. The evacuation order began at 2 p.m. Monday and residents were told to be prepared “to be displaced for several days.”
“We are asking that residents and business owners comply with requests from first responders and law enforcement to evacuate,” Roger Dail, director of Lenoir County Emergency Services, said in a statement. “Even if your residence or business does not flood, access may be severely limited or impossible in the next few days.”
Featured Image: WBUR
(c) 2016, The Washington Post · Chico Harlan
