How did Hurricane Florence unfold through the Carolinas?

Frese lived in the evacuation zone, about a kilometer and a half from the beach, but she chose to take the storm home.

"Floods, that's the biggest concern," Frese said. She also acknowledged that she may have to fend for herself without power. But with a stock of food, batteries and lanterns, she was ready to calm down "at least a week," she said.

"Then I might have to go."

& # 39; It is only the beginning & # 39;

Thursday afternoon, the speed of the Florence winds had dropped and the storm was classified in category 2. But forecasters have declared that its greatest threats remain: a potentially deadly storm surge, floods and what must have been an event rainy history.

In New Bern, North Carolina, along the banks of the Neuse River, a team from CNN watched the water rise and flood Union Point Park until they were forced to leave.

"It's only the beginning," he said. "It has not even happened yet and there is already water (in) the lower parts of the houses."

In the evening, the storm was reduced to a category 1. But conditions continued to deteriorate overnight as thousands of evacuees were sleeping in emergency shelters.

The Annazette Riley-Cromartie home in eastern North Carolina began to be flooded around midnight. While her children were trying to sleep in a top bunk, her husband could hear voices in the distance.

"You keep hearing people screaming, and you can not do anything," she said. "It's the worst feeling in the world."

At sunrise on Friday, the city had seen about 7 inches of rain and 10 feet of storm surge, and dozens of people still needed to be spared.

Trapped by flood waters

At 7:15, Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, became strangely calm as the eye of Hurricane Florence, now a Category 1 storm, loomed overhead.

Florence, with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, had touched down.

The trees were swaying and rocking, blocking the roads. Deserted flooded streets and swollen rivers have escaped from their banks. Power transformers exploded like fireworks, leaving hundreds of thousands of customers in the dark. Whole neighborhoods soon became swamps.

Back in New Bern, the Cajun Navy and other volunteer teams joined the emergency response teams to rescue people from the rising waters. As water poured into their homes, residents found shelter in attics.

"In a few seconds, my house has been flooded to the waist, and now it's at the chest," Peggy Perry told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Friday.

"We have been here for three or four hours."

In River Bend, south of New Bern, a man screamed through the open window at a small abandoned boat that was being commandeered by the Maryland Whitewater Rescue Team.

But when they asked if he needed help, the man said no.

He had everything he needed, he said. He just wanted to say hello.

The first deaths

A tree fell on a house in Wilmington, North Carolina.

A family of three was inside the house and emergency responders worked for hours to save them.

A group of firefighters who had rushed to the scene was shaken. They knelt outside the house and began to pray.

& # 39; It's time to go & # 39;

Friday night, Florence had been downgraded to a tropical storm. But the rain showed no signs of slowing down and the rivers continued to overflow on their shores.

On Saturday morning, the National Meteorological Service warned of the possibility of a "catastrophic flood".

"We are facing walls of water on our shores, along our rivers, across our farmland, in our cities and in our cities," said North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. "More people are facing an imminent threat than when the storm was just off the coast."

Bostic had gone through Hurricane Floyd in 1999, she said, and she took everything away – cars, clothes, her house.

"And they expect it to be even higher," she said. "Then we know it's time to go."

About 40 miles northeast of Jacksonville, North Carolina, Marti Dias was struggling with the same achievement. She watched the water of the New River rise slowly in her street, mailboxes protruding from the surface. Some of his neighbors were already gone. It was time to go there.

"I will not lie, I cried this morning," she told CNN. "I collapsed and cried."

As the waters flooded, the roads quickly became impassable. An abandoned car was idled down the street with water slamming at the passenger windows.

That evening, emergency responders and volunteers in Wilmington, North Carolina, completed approximately 700 rescues; Pender County led 172 and lost two ambulances in flood waters.

By the end of the day, 13 people are reported to have died, many of whom have been flooded.

On Saturday night, Hailey Burgalow was traveling to Virginia with her sister, her sister's boyfriend and aunt, when they were flooded on Interstate 95, forcing them to travel to Lumberton.

The city was still recovering from Hurricane Matthew, and many houses appeared to be abandoned or dilapidated, their windows raised and weeds growing larger in yards.

The group was parked at a gas station and tried to sleep in the car, Burgalow told CNN. Eventually, a police officer stopped and they asked him if there was any way to get to the north. There was no, told them the officer. He directed them to a shelter full of evacuees.

"They ran out of beds and blankets," Burgalow told CNN. "It was super crowded, but we were grateful."

On Sunday morning, Burgalow and his family realized that they were stuck there.

Flooded roads and fragile dikes

The National Hurricane Center released its latest report for Florence on Sunday morning as the storm, crawling inland, weakened into a tropical depression with sustained winds reaching 35 mph – but many rain was on its way.

The center said in its latest opinion that southeastern North Carolina could see up to 40 inches of rain and also warned of the risk of landslides in western North Carolina and Southwest Virginia.

Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo called the floods in the northern part of the county a "phenomenon" and "something we had never seen before". The city was essentially isolated from the rest of the state because of high water, he added.

"In all directions you are trying to enter the city – 20 to 40 miles outside, the roads are impassable," he said. "Anyone trying to get in here – do not try, you'll be hijacked."

The Lumber River was close to 25 feet high at noon – 12 feet above the flood level. At 26 feet, officials in the city of Lumberton said the dike around the river could be submerged.

At this point, "all bets are off," said Corey Walters, deputy director of public works.

The rain slowed during the night, he said, giving officials another chance to try to bridge the gap in the dike system – but Walters did not seem optimistic.

"Our teams are taking it again to try to stop it," Walters said. "We're just fighting time here, there's another rain band coming in and we know it, we expect another 4 to 6 inches."

The water began to seep under the sand barriers that the workers had placed there Sunday afternoon.

Bobby Hunt had just finished packing at the back of his pickup truck.

"Y'all is ready? Let's go in the truck and get out of here," Hunt told his wife and cousin as they were preparing to leave their home in Lumberton, which still had suffered the damage of Hurricane Matthew.

This storm had surprised them with floods in the middle of the night, he told CNN. But after being informed by the city that the dike could be submerged, the family did not hesitate to leave.

On Sunday, Bostic, who fled her Rocky Point home the day before, learned that she and her family had gone out just in time.

His house, about 200 meters from the shore, was submerged and the water was still rising.

Nearly 20 years after Bostic lost almost everything to Hurricane Floyd, Florence forced her to do it again.

This is not finished

On Sunday, two more deaths were confirmed in South Carolina, bringing their number to at least 18 years.

Hundreds of hundreds of people were saved in the Carolinas. There were at least 170 patients in four medical shelters across the state, and officials believed that others would be on the way while rescues and floods would continue throughout the day.

Officials from Pender County, North Carolina, said they received 300 calls for help on Sunday. Rescue attempts and other essential services have been hampered by a lack of fuel.

Governor Cooper accompanied the Coast Guard in an overflight of flooded areas in North Carolina. He said he saw major floods in farmland in Jacksonville and throughout Onslow County.

In New Bern, where Friday morning's drama had dropped dramatically, the governor saw boats fail in town and major debris.

While flying over Fayetteville, he said: "It was difficult to see the raging Cape Fear River, and you knew it was going up and you could see these vulnerable communities."

"We have a big job ahead," Cooper said.

The rain had slowed down somewhat in Fayetteville, but officials feared that it could draw people into a false sense of security and encourage them to return.

"We're going to get hammered," said Kevin Arata, director of communications for the city.

"The worst is yet to come."