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Patricia Sullivan
Journalist covering government, politics and other regional issues in Arlington County and Alexandria
WILMINGTON, N.C. – This city has always embraced the water, with a busy waterfront on one side and the ocean on the other. But as a result of hurricane Florence, the water made Wilmington an island, isolated from the rest of the world.
It is impossible to enter and exit the city now. The floods have closed the highways and secondary roads, smothering it by land. The airport is closed since Wednesday. It is not accessible by sea, the port of Wilmington on the Cape Fear River being closed.
Wilmington will probably be stuck at least another day. It's still raining. It has been raining almost constantly for days. Rivers continue to rise, widespread floods are expected, and Governor Roy Cooper (D) said the storm had "never been so dangerous."
Officials said at least 450 people were rescued from flood waters in the Wilmington area.
An official issued an abrupt warning to anyone who was trying to get to Wilmington, including those who evacuated before the storm and look forward to coming back to see the state of their home.
"Do not come here," said Woody White, chairman of the New Hanover County Board of Directors. "There is no access to Wilmington."
The vast majority of this saturated city of about 117,000 people in southeastern North Carolina remained without electricity, which meant no television, the Internet, or social networks. "Dawson's Creek" and "Eastbound & Down" were filmed. Cell phone batteries die after a weekend without recharging, and even for those who have extra juice, mobile networks can not handle the demand that is made to them.
Local authorities, looking at the prospect of catastrophic floods of the Cape Fear River and limited help from outside the city or its New Hanover County, are visibly worried about the situation .
"Every road entering the city or county of New Hanover is impracticable. The river has not developed and will probably not be developed until Tuesday, "said Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo (D).
The main arteries include Highways 40 and 140, which are closed in parts.
State and federal agencies have promised a robust response. Duke Energy, the mega-utility that serves the south-east of the country, plans to have up to 1,000 trucks in the greater Wilmington area as soon as crews can safely go there. .
The region's water utility, the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, on Sunday issued an urgent warning: without diesel and gasoline, its treatment plant would run out of fuel, which would have the effect of suppressing fires. . and drinking water. The county has arrived with enough fuel to keep the treatment plants and pumps running, but this highlights the days without electricity and the outside help they can bring to a community.
[For small-town Carolinians, the question isn’t when they’ll rebuild — but whether they will at all]
The authorities have stated that they are satisfied with the response of the state and the federal government to date, but are worried about whether sufficient resources will be put in place as the river progresses. Cape Fear continues to rise and as the threat of flooding increases.
The demand for shelters remains high. Five are open and the county of New Hanover opens a sixth which houses nearly 1,400 people.
Some residents, locked up for two days or more in their dark, dark homes, hit the road on Sunday despite multiple police warnings to refrain from driving. But few places were open. The gas pipes lasted two hours. Few stores were open and those who saw people wait for hours in the rain and sweltering humidity to buy necessities.
But the arteries were busy, as motorists passed by the water-laden plots, the water-covered car parks and the water-covered streams. Shreds of jagged trees replaced their graceful predecessors and every few miles or so, power lines fell on the streets. Few were on foot; these pedestrians were searching for debris or looking for open service stations or food stores. Branches and power lines littered the streets, and the awnings of the service stations were torn off.
A curfew came into effect on Friday was extended Sunday after the arrest of five people suspected of looting a dollar store. Residents can not be in the streets between 8 pm and 6 am
Many residents who survived the storm despite evacuation orders seemed insensitive to Wilmington being cut off from the rest of the world. Many were more concerned about the fact that they spend another day without air conditioning or with sufficient autonomy.
Justin Wakefield and his 11-year-old cousins, twins Sean Carney and Erin Carney, were sitting in front of the closed shop Snack Box in downtown Wilmington, checking their phones during a relatively mild break from the rain Sunday afternoon .
Residents of Carolina Beach had evacuated the coast and were staying in an Airbnb above the store with 10 members of their family. They ended up with rain, power failure and being away from home.
"It's annoying," said Wakefield, 36. "You will go crazy and the kids go crazy. We are short of food and it is a mess. We are all pretty hungry and tired of PB & J.
"And not the Internet! I want to watch YouTube, "said Sean. "I want to go back to the island to go fishing and cooking."
[‘We face walls of water’: Communities in North Carolina band together to face Florence]
Tracy Turner stayed in Wilmington to protect her newly built home in an unfinished subdivision. The police officer knew what she was entering and stored at home with a generator and a lot of food. She was lucky: the house lost power for a few minutes and is filled with friends who do not have the power and their dogs.
She has seen a lot of kindness, including someone who has cleaned the trees from the front of their subdivision and believes that the storm is an opportunity for the community to come together.
"Personally, I do not feel isolated and I know that the leaders of this community are doing everything they can," she said.
Jason Mohr, an HVAC worker who was looking for fresh air with his friends, ignored the fact that no one can enter or leave the city.
"Maybe if you come from outside the city, you feel trapped," he says, "but we live here.
Zezima reported from Washington.
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