Matthew leaves trail of wreckage
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Matthew was long gone from the Atlantic coast early today, but the devastation lingered, most notably in North Carolina, where flooded cities tried to dry out and those downstream kept an eye on rising rivers.
The flooding disaster is forecast to slowly unfold over the next several days as all that rain — more than a foot in places — flows into rivers and downstream, likely causing more inundation in many of the same places devastated by a similar deluge from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
Thousands of people found themselves suddenly trapped in homes and cars. Rescuers in Coast Guard helicopters plucked some of them from rooftops and used military vehicles to reach others, including a woman who held on to a tree for three hours after her car was overrun by flood waters.
The storm killed more than 500 people in Haiti and at least 18 in the U.S. Most were swept away by flood waters.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said Sunday that authorities were searching for five people and feared they may find more victims.
“Hurricane Matthew is off the map. But it is still with us. And it is still deadly,” McCrory said.
Princeville, a town of 2,000 that disappeared in the waters of the Tar River during Floyd, was evacuated Sunday as the river was expected to rise to 17 feet above flood stage by late today — a level not seen since Floyd.
More than a million people in South Carolina and North Carolina were without power, and at least four separate sections of Interstate 95 — the main artery linking the East Coast from Florida to Maine — were closed in North Carolina.
The rainfall totals were staggering: Nearly 15 inches in Fayetteville and 8 inches in Raleigh.
McCrory warned that cities along rivers in eastern North Carolina needed to be prepared for days of flooding.
The Lumber River in Lumberton was 4 feet above its record level Sunday afternoon and was forecast to remain there for at least five days.
Elsewhere along the Atlantic coast, things were slowly returning to normal. Much of Savannah, Ga., which had 17 inches of rain, was still without electricity. About 150 people stood in line for a grocery store to open like it was a Black Friday sale.
In addition to eight deaths in North Carolina, there were four in Florida and three each in Georgia and South Carolina.
