into action overnight by the local fire department needing their resources to get hundreds of people from their homes. hundreds more in need of help over the course of today as this rain continues to fall. i spoke with one family yesterday just north of here in pinder, county. they were packing up as many of their items in a trailer because they realized their home could be destroyed. the cape verde river could rise to the second level of this home. the caution from officials right now in this area is if you feel safe at home, it is okay to stay. the priority right now is getting first responders where they need to. and if you are in trouble, 911 is a working number. call the number and they will do their best to get help to you as soon as possible. and the emergency operations command center right now i m told there are maps all over the table.
this one, cape verde river, fayetteville, cresting at 62 feet. that s almost the record. that doesn t crest until tuesday. right now it s at 36 feet. it s going to jump up to 64. so it s incredible, christi and victor, to think the rain is going to be over. yet days later we ll see the rivers possibly double in size. no doubt about it. jennifer grey, thank you so much. and listen, if you re watching this and you want to help the people impacted by hurricane florence, there are ways to donate and get in touch with charities responding. i spoke to someone from the red cross a couple days ago that said there s no call at the moment for blood donations to respond to this emergency, but because of all the shutdowns, they are losing about 4200 donations a day from people who could be going during this time across the carolinas to donate. so you can do that. there are lots of ways to help. go to cnn.com/impact for more ways to help.
beginning to rise and take effect. and surprise people, in effect. yesterday i was up just north of here in pender county. a county under mandatory evacuation. and officials there told me they hasn t yet had called for service. nobody had needed rescuing from their homes if they had stayed, but the concern was that as this storm moved on, as the storm was downgraded, that people would be wanting to come back to their homes to survey the damage that it had done. but the reminder again that the damage that this storm will do is so far from over. just after having that conversation with an official, where she wanted me to continue to caution people not to try to come back to their home, i encountered a family who was in the process of packing up their things, of evacuating, of heading somewhere as the desk station is unknown, but they recognized it was time to leave their home because the northeast cape verde river had already begun to creep into their yard. typically a 200-yard walk. tha