Hurricane Florence Live Updates: Water Rescues Underway in North Carolina

• More than 320,000 people lost power in North Carolina, while officials from Onslow County reported "Major structural damage to homes, businesses and institutions" before midnight Friday.

• Florence turns out to be a giant who swarms along the coast and pours rain into the Carolinas. Anxiety is strong in cities located inland, in Greenville, North Carolina, where locals were preparing for rain and storm surges. Learn more about the floods expected here.

• More than 4,500 people visited shelters in South Carolina and the authorities said they had room for more than 34,000 people in 64 shelters. North Carolina has opened 126 shelters for about 12,000 people and is trying to open more. Here is what it looks like inside.

• We asked readers living in Florence what they were doing for the storm. Read about their experiences.

• The Times offers open and unlimited access to our coverage of Hurricane Florence and Typhoon Mangkhut. Catch up the rest of our coverage here.

150 call for help while the floods in New Bern

In New Bern, city officials said emergency rescue teams were trying to reach 150 residents trapped in cars, on rooftops and in their attics as La Neuse overflowed and flooded the city.

The national meteorological service issued a flash flood warning for the area, where the water level was measured at nearly 10 feet.

On the city's Facebook page, the police department warned residents whose houses are flooded not to enter the attic unless they have a way to cut the ceiling to allow ventilation. The police also put in place a curfew for at least 24 hours until 7 pm Saturday.

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New Bern, the historic capital city of North Carolina, now a popular tourist destination, is at the intersection of the Neuse and Trent rivers, making it vulnerable to flooding during severe storms. The Neuse flows into the Strait of Pamlico, separated from the Atlantic by the outer banks.

Government and military officials prepare to respond

Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Thursday that the federal government had organized resources and staff in the East Coast states to help quickly after the storm.

FEMA workers focused on helping the state and local authorities to prepare, he said. But as the storm spreads, the agency will focus on identifying damage to infrastructure and restoring services.

"The infrastructure will break. The power will go out, "Long said at a press conference. "We need people to understand that disasters are very frustrating and that it takes time to rehabilitate the infrastructure. We will go as fast as possible to get up.

The National Guard has prepared about 4,000 soldiers and airmen, with more than 10 states mobilized. Air force and army helicopters were ready for search and rescue operations and evacuations.

A bad day for a wedding

The hurricane season coincides with the wedding season, which means a lot of cancellations and plans thwarted this week in the Carolinas. Some couples, such as Leah Chesney and Brandon Frick, managed to advance their ceremonies by holding their wedding on the Outer Banks beach a few days earlier than planned.

Deborah Sawyer, a wedding planner and veteran Outer Banks photographer, said she always advised couples who were considering a late summer or early fall ceremony to get marriage insurance. Beachfront homes used as event venues in the area typically offer tenant insurance that covers storms.

Carter Loetz and Esther Walsh were relieved to have insurance. They live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and have been planning a marriage of 130 people in Charleston, South Carolina for a year.

It was planned for Saturday. Now they are planning a new set and new outfits: their new date is November 30 and the summer party they planned will not work. They have also added a menu item.

"We will definitely be serving hurricanes as a specialty cocktail," said Loetz.

Is this the last time we will have a hurricane Florence?

We will never see Hurricane Harvey again. Or an Irma, Maria or Nate, from elsewhere.

After the hurricane season of last year, these four names have been permanently removed from the list used by forecasters to designate tropical cyclones.

If Hurricane Florence meets expectations, it would seem that it can sink into the list of removed names, which occurs when the World Meteorological Organization deems "that a storm is so deadly or costly that the use future of his name on a different storm would be inappropriate for reasons of sensitivity.

The current tropical cyclone denomination system has existed since 1979. The names of the Atlantic storms are derived from a different list than the storms in the eastern Pacific. The names are chosen to be "familiar to people in each region," according to the meteorological organization.

Learn more about how storms are named and removed.

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