Storm florence. All of our crews are out in it. Well be bringing all of this information to you. Our breaking News Coverage our breaking News Coverage continues now with ac360. Captions by vitac www. Vitac. Com good evening. Im Anderson Cooper in willing, North Carolina. The story has been wailg rain and rain and more rain. Were seeing the heaviest band of rain just in the last ten minutes or so hitting this area down by the cape fear river. Five people have died so far in this storm. Five people. Five lives lost. Hundreds of people have had to be rescued from their homes. Some here in wilmington. Others in new bern and elsewhere. There have been rescues going on last night throughout today and no doubt will continue tonight. Well be talking to some rescuers in the next hour as
well as some people who have been rescued. And the stories they tell are harrowing of water coming into their homes. Of sending their children up into the attic with what they thought was to save their lives, and then finally being rescued when all hope seemed to be lost. There is a lot to tell but what is happening on the ground here. The storm is now a Tropical Storm but if you think that means it is over for people here, this rain tells what you the real story is. There is still concern about storm surge in areas, still concern about how much rain will continue to come down throughout the night into tomorrow. There are a lot of different areas that are just getting pummeled and pounded and have been all day long. I drove around wilmington earlier just to get a sense of how the city is. The electricity is out. As you know, probably North Carolina, theres more than 300,000 people at this point
without electricity. South carolina has Tens Of Thousands of people without electricity. We dont have exact numbers yet but those numbers are likely to increase. All throughout wilmington, there are huge enormous old beautiful trees that are on the ground. It is very difficult to get anywhere. Driving around, roads are blocked. By downed trees. They havent had time to even deal with those trees. Most concern, the biggest priority, anyone in an emergency situation. And as we said. Well talk to the fire chief, to the mayor, and to really give you a sense of what has been happening in North Carolina over the last 24 hours. This storm is unlike any that ive covered before. Weve certainly seen bigger storms in terms of the wind speed. The category of storms. Just for a rain event, a water event. This is just a slow moving slog of a storm that seems to know
stuck and is just pounding this state, South Carolina as well. I want to go to chris cuomo in north myrtle beach, North Carolina. How are things there . Reporter this is witching hour. Everything is conspiring together this storm right now. This is the thickest ban of rain. The tide is coming in behind me. All the energy the storm has been storing up. It is now being released. The wind has shifted and it is coming in onshore. This is what theyre worried about and well see how all these hours of Pounding Rain that youre pointing to. It will make it easy for flooding. 650,000 people are without power. Were working off our generators and our batteries here to bring you the programming but this is it. It is coming now. Once it gets to the top of the beach, there is no protection for these homes. And then when it gets past the homes, it is not like houston that filled one harvey the way it did but it is flat to depressed. The water will pool and it will stay. In terms of what youve seen all day, is this as bad as youve seen . Reporter yep, this is it. This is the most of everything together that weve seen. Weve been waiting for this storm. When weve heard it was no locker a hurricane and the eye was gone, some of these indications give you illusions or even delusions about mitigating the impact. This is about time. Water over time. Now wind, water and energy being
released in the surge. Well see what happens. Thank you. I want to go to todd at the river. Weve all been watching this river as it starts to rise. Brian, what are you seeing . Reporter the cape fear river, aptly named at this hour. Officials are very concerned about the krefgt levels of this river, the high tide records, all the records this river is now setting. I just spoke to our cnn weather center. They told me a couple hours ago at high tide, this river has broken all the records. It was 8. 28 feet at high tide. That is breaking all the records. And upstream in the northeastern section, it will go to 20 feet. The river has a different contour there. It is shallower in some of those
areas. Tributaries are flowing out. When you think of 20 feet above your normal flood stage, your normal high levels for this river, that you know theyre in danger from here in wilmington, all the way upstream. I am standing here on water street here in Downtown Wilmington and im standing in some water the storm surge has pushed the river into this area. The river is just beyond the pylons there. You cant see it now but when we could see it a few minutes ago, white caps all over the place, the current was just furious. The Weather Forecasters keeping a very close eye on this part of the cape fear river. When we talk about the flood stage setting record levels. That was for this part of the river where it meets the atlantic ocean. Thats where it is. It could break several records by several feet upstream. You have a lot of People Living if those lowlying areas. The rain is of course relentless right now. Yeah. And they were saying yesterday, the river may not crest until tuesday. Well walk the the mayor about that. And miguel, how is 30th . Reporter windy and rainy. It is just not stopping. Florence is packing a punch. 24 hours ago we were dealing with wind and rain. 24 hours later, we are still dealing with wind and rain. I know my colleague had a very, very heavy night of wind and rain last night. Much of today, it was rainy, there was storm surge. Now the wind is back in a way we havent seen almost since weve been going live in the last 24 hours or so. I just spoke to the city manager. He said amazingly, they have a lot of trees down, roofs blown off buildings, incredibly, no serious incidents in the town of Carolina Beach despite the weather theyre dealing with. 600 people of the 6,200 who live here who decided to ride out this storm. Theyll be checking on them in the days ahead. It is not clear when they will be able to open the town back up. One bridge in, one bridge back out. It will be difficult for Emergency Services to get out and get to people if they get into trouble. The winds are just intense. The rain is intense. Were kind of hiding behind the wall. The water and the rain coming down is very, very heavy. The tide will come in about
midnight. We saw a very strong surge. A halfhour, 45 minutes, a there was water to my waist. We expect that may happen tonight with. The wind blowing so hard out to sea, that may help. Well see. This has thrown a lot of unknowns at us and at the officials who are trying to get through it. I would tell you to go get dry but thats pretty much impossible to get dry. I want to go on our meteorologist to talk about where the storm is. What The Big Picture is. Whats the latest . The latest, we take a look. The storm is moving incredibly slow and thats the focus here. Thats the reason why flooding will be such a big concern going forward. Right now, Western Movement at only three miles an hour. The sustained winds are 70 miles an hour. You also still have the Tornado Watch in effect for several hours. Some of the communities getting down pours are under that threat for tornadoes. Right now, youve got areas like morehead toward new bern. You have this very heavy band of rain and unfortunately, you will see the heavy rain over and over again in the same spots for at least the next several hours. Youre talking about the next several hours. Tomorrow, will it still be raining . Yes. It is likely going to continue to rain because the track of this storm doesnt move all that much. Especially in the next 24 hours. But even in the next 48. It is expected to be very close to South Carolina. The center of circulation just crossed but we dont start to
see it reopen until sunday afternoon. Because of that, areas of North Carolina and South Carolina are expecting to have the heavy rain for the next 48 hours. Youll notice the direction. The majority of that heavy storm surge is in portions of North Carolina. As the storm moves inland, it will take and it start to push it into places like myrtle beach and elsewhere along the northeast coast of South Carolina. We still expect these areas to pick up an additional six to nine feet of storm surge compared to what we already have. Incredible. This still remains a very dangerous situation for people on the ground. We appreciate that. Weve been watching rescues taking place all across the region. Last night, today, thousands of emergency responders, many of
them volunteers helping others. This volunteer, amber, you see her in this photograph carrying a 7yearold girl to safety. Its been seen by millions all over the world. She has two kids of her own. She is a volunteer with the civilian Crisis Response team base in the indiana which is where she lives. She joins us now from the town of santonberg. The photos were seeing are incredible. Can you just walk us through what happened during the rescue . I know it was a family of five and their dog, is that right . Yes. And it is nice to be here and talking to you, anderson. We basically got a call around 4 00 a. M. From the local Fire Department. They were receiving calls from different families that were stranded and the waters were starting to rise and they couldnt get to them. Our team moved in. As quickly as we could, and safely. We towed our boats behind us. When we got to where we couldnt
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the wind is Even Stronger than it has been in the last 24 hours. It is unbelievable. This storm, florence, will not quit. They call this a category 1. This is strongest category 1s that ive certainly seen. Most of Newhanover County is now out of electricity. Almost the entire county, our cell phones have gone down. All communications, were now using a Satellite Phone and many other technology to even get this live shot out. It is absolute pandemonium here. That was miguel marq you ez. No ones idea of typical. You heard three miles an hour, it is incredible. It is measured in feet, not inches. Hundreds of people needing rescue last night, today, probably tonight. You saw the Volunteer Amber who drove here from indiana to get a young girl to safety. With that girls mom. You were home with your three kids, your husband, your dog. You thought the house would be safe because it is a brick house. When did you realize the situation was getting out of control . About 11 30, 12 00. When the water came into the house. It came in slowly but it just kept rising. And then my husband pushed the mattress up to the attic and we were there a little bit. The winds started getting really bad so we made a decision to
come down out of the attic and put the kids on the top bunk bed. For them to at least try to get some sleep. And hopefully the Water Didnt Rise anymore. And then while we were still waiting, my husband kept hearing people yelling for help. And we tried to go outside. But then the water got above his chest and then he had to come back inside. You cant help anyone. You just hear people yelling and you cant do anything. It is the worst feeling in the world to hear people. You cant do anything. So you could hear your neighbors screaming and yelling for help. Yes. Hes like, babe, i can hear
people yelling. I have to try to do something. He tried to walk around but the water got too high. My husband is 62. The water got to almost above his chest. He had to come back and then make sure the kids were okay. Then we called 911 and they were like, well, we can just wait. We didnt get anyone to come get us until with 9 00 in the morning. So i understand it was a volunteer who came and rescued you . Is that right . Yeah. There were some guys from indianapolis with some boats. And they were basically just going back and forth bringing people across, i dont even know how far it was for them for to us get to land where the Fire Department was waiting with a truck. And we were basically just waiting for people to come on to the boat. When you saw them come, i cant imagine, that must have
been the greatest feeling in the world. It was. It was all over again. I felt so safe and we made sure the kids got out first. We made sure our kids left. And then we stayed back. And then they came back and got us. It was longest time, not knowing, okay, i know theyre safer, but not really knowing until you actually got to see your kids again. I know were showing photos of the rescue. What do you want to say to those volunteers who rescued you and your family . I want to say thank you and god bless you. It takes a special person to leave their own home and their family and come all this way to help us. We get talked about, why did you stay . We thought it would be okay. It downgraded. We live in a brick house. We thought it would be fine. And im thankful there were people to help us. I am so glad your family is okay. As you know, there have been hundreds of rescues and several people have lost their lives already. You were very lucky and i am so glad that youre safe tonight and i wish you and your family the best. Thanks for talking to us. Thank you. Her family, as you can see, is far from the only ones needing rescue. Crews are very busy. They still are. Take a look at this. We decided to go out last night just to scope it out and see where we would go today and ended up getting hundreds of calls for service last night before the 35 to 40 people out in water between two feet to four feet. People were posting on facebook, their addresses and stuff. Elderly people, blind people, medically problem people. Everybody. Anybody that needed help. We were there. We want to get the latest on whats going. On wilmingtons fire chief is kind enough to join us. Mayor, how are things going . We have a lot of downed power lines and trees. A lot of the roads are impassable. Beautiful old trees are down. A crying shame. A lot of the old oak trees are gone. So it will take us some time on get these roads cleared and get people, get roads passable. A big concern when we talk 24 hours ago was about the water on the ground. What are you seeing in terms of water . We havent seen the flooding yet that we anticipated. There are some isolated areas. We have flooding. What were seeing is a lot of trees that are down. A lot of power lines that are
down. It is dangerous out there. Some of these have live wires on them and im asking the citizens that have evacuated to give us some time to be able to clean up the roadways. A lot of people want to get back to wilmington after the storm passes. We need to clean up the roadways. We were trying to get to the waffle house at monkey junction, i think it is called. And it took forever lt youve been involved in rescues, a tree fell on a house here. Ive had a couple of busy days. I dont know if it was with this News Organization or not but we have a 50mileanhour sustained Wind Protocol that we pull troops back and we never got to do it. You were out the whole time. Yes. The firefighters were getting trees off houses, getting people out of houses, doing rescues like you saw today. I believe it was earlier today. I think it was in wilmington. A tree fell on a house and you had to get somebody out who was pinned down. Unfortunately, we had a tragedy where a tree fell. The firefighters worked really hard. They were able to rescue one of the victims. Unfortunately, a mother and a young child perished. Those were the first known fatalities so far. Five so far have died are you still out there expecting more . The trucks are running up and down the road. Ive gotten to say, youre in the city of wilmington. I cant not say the rescue effort is a combined effort with new hanover rescue services. The three of them compromise, theyre on duty tonight and will be for the next several days until we get through the recovery period. Youre encouraging people not
to come back. It is not just how difficult the roads are. The water will be continuing. This thing is not over even though it is a Tropical Storm. It will be miserable for a while. It is. We talked about, the river will crest at 25 feet on tuesday. So well be dealing with a flood event next next week so we have a tremendous. A rainfall thats falling. We have just an enormous amount of rain that has been with the system. Yeah. Your message . If youre not here, stay away. There is a process we go through to do damage assessment. There is a process to work with duke power where we prioritize the power. There is no electricity. There is no reason to come back. Please give us a few days. We need to get back on our feet
and we will. Well be open for bu