The passage of Hurricane Florence in North Carolina, South Carolina

Editor's Note: This article appears in a special section on Hurricane Florence in the print edition of The News & Observer and The Herald-Sun on Sunday, September 30th. If you are not a subscriber, the section will be available in local stores.

Hurricane Florence was nothing more than a giant drop of gray on the weather radar screen for two weeks, threatening the Carolinas but somewhat abstract until noon on Thursday, September 13th.

It was then that the outer bands of the storm arrived in New Hanover County, beginning four days of tropical wind and rain, two weeks of flooding and years of rebuilding as a result of that. 39 will be called one of the worst storms on the east coast. the deadliest for both states since the records were kept.

Amy Rowlett had just moved to Carolina Beach last December with her husband, Brandon, after living on the mainland of New Hanover for 15 years. The couple obeyed the Carolina Beach evacuation orders, with over a million other visitors and residents who were urged to leave the coastal communities of North and South Carolina before the storm.

Like many evacuees, the Rowletts have pets: three dogs and a cat that they would not leave behind, but who also could not stay in most local hotels where they could seek shelter . So, they were at the first of several friends in Wilmington who offered to take them when, around 5:00 pm on September 14, the power is off.

"When the power goes off, you wake up somehow," said Rowlett. "So, the current was cut off and we were lost from there. Our days simply passed into each other. I mean, it was as if the hours were past and you were just sitting there, doing nothing.

"There was so much rain. It did not stop. This would not be the case. He was just sitting here on us.

Florence was a storm that evolved at its own pace. From the moment he left the west coast of Africa, he has never traveled more than 18 km / h while crossing the Atlantic Ocean. But what was lacking in speed, it compensated en masse, in moisture and sometimes in wind speed, reaching category 4 status with winds of 140 mph before losing strength, taking it back and losing it to the sea. approach of the United States.

By the time the storm landed just after 7 am on September 14 south of Wrightsville Beach, the sustained winds from Florence had fallen to 92 mph – Category 1 – but its speed had slowed to 2 mph. People strolling along the beach on a sunny day move faster.

At this rate, the inhabitants of Florence, South Carolina and South Carolina, would travel every four kilometers of constant firing, with rainfall of more than 35 inches at Elizabethtown and two feet in many other places.

The combination of the torrential rains and the glacial movement of Florence made the storm a double threat: the initial attack, then, a few days later, the second flood of Water flowing from the central section of North Carolina to saturated communities downstream in both states.

This was enough to cause a 10-foot storm surge that turned the sand dunes into cliffs on the North Carolina islands and sent the Neuse to the second floor of New Bern's downtown buildings. Enough to fill almost instantly Carolina Beach Lake, which the city had dried up before the arrival of the storm. Enough to send the Neuse, Cape Fear, Lumber, Little Pee Dee, Great Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers to record or near record levels and cause epic floods in North Carolina that then flooded parts of South Carolina.

That was enough to flood tens of thousands of homes and businesses, many of which had been inundated by Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Enough to send more than 25,000 people into Winston- Salem in Georgetown and force 1.2 million out of 1.5 million people in North Carolina public school students will miss classes. Schools in half of South Carolina also closed a few days before the storm.

Enough to submerge portions of 2,200 roads across North Carolina, including sections of Highways 40 and 95 and the United States, prompting Governor Roy Cooper to suggest that travelers cross Tennessee and completely avoid NC At the moment where the flood moved to South Carolina, at least 200 roads were closed, including 18 miles of I-95 in both directions.

Enough to break the energy for more than one million customers in two states. Enough to kill more than 4.1 million chickens and turkeys, and at least 5,500 pigs, and to drown soybeans and sweet potatoes still on the ground. Enough to send pork waste and coal ash flowing on earth berms.

Enough to cause up to 50 billion dollars in damages, making Florence one of the most expensive storms ever recorded.

Worse, it was enough to contribute to at least 47 deaths: 36 in North Carolina, nine in South Carolina and two in Virginia.

The first deaths occurred in the afternoon when the storm arrived, when a tree fell on a house in Wilmington, killing a mother and her baby. Between the storm surge and the rain, the city's downtown edge that joins the Cape Fear River was quickly submerged. As the rain continued to fall – two feet in total at Wilmington – the water was also rising on the outer edges, closing the highways and making the city of Port an island.

As the storm dragged on Friday, bands of rain began to reach north and west of North Carolina and south toward Myrtle Beach, dropping trees, power lines and telephone lines. As rivers and streams grew, professional and volunteer water rescue teams began recovering stranded people in Fayetteville and Cumberland County, as well as in and around Lumberton. County of Robeson. In Newport City on Friday morning, workers at the Carteret County Humanitarian Society used Facebook to ask for help, 43 dogs and 80 cats from their flooded building.

Saturday, the storm has progressed a little further. The power was still in Myrtle Beach, but as in other beach towns, businesses were closed. Hotels, restaurants, convenience stores – almost everything was closed, leaving those who had waited late to evacuate almost nowhere to go and no gas to get there. Cities have begun to impose curfews to ensure the safety of people and property.

The rain continued to fall and the rivers began to rise. Saturday noon, the town of Fayetteville and the town of Wade in Cumberland County issued mandatory evacuation orders for anyone living within two kilometers of the banks of the Cape Fear and Little Rivers. In Lumberton, local officials have asked anyone living in flooded areas after Hurricane Matthew to evacuate. On Saturday night, as the Lumber River climbed faster than expected, the city ordered everyone to leave southern Lumberton. All around the city, volunteers with boats on trailers idling in the car parks and on the shoulders of the roads, ready to pull people out of the water.

On Sunday morning, while the rain was still falling on an area extending over North Carolina and South Carolina and reaching Georgia, large sections of central and eastern North Carolina were under water, from a few centimeters to several feet. During the day, the streams turned into rivers and the rivers and swamps turned into seas. The water surrounded houses, neighborhoods, entire cities.

Throughout the day, the rain continued to fall and the number of deaths increased steadily. That night, a woman was driving in the water that was crossing a road in Union County, North Carolina, was being carried away and was losing her one-year-old baby as a result of the l & rsquo; # 39; flooding. In South Carolina, it was the deadliest night of the storm, with three people killed on flooded roads.

The storm continued to make its way through South Carolina, was no longer a hurricane but dropped heavy rains: more than 15 inches in Conway, more than 19 inches in Marion, more than 22 inches in Cheraw.

Finally, on Monday, what was left of Florence moved west of North Carolina, then headed for Tennessee before turning to the northeast. In the east of North Carolina, the sky has started to clear up and people have come out of homes, shelters and hotel rooms without electricity for several days. They went out to see what was left.

In some places, the water had begun to retreat. In others, he was stable. Along the Cape Fear River, the most severe floods were yet to come, with the flood of the river still a week later.

South Carolina, thinking at one point that it would bear the brunt of the storm, was now preparing for the worst of its remains, as all that water rolled south. In the small town of Nichols, in Marion County, residents had just rebuilt with Matthew and others had left for good. On September 20, Nichols was less than 4 to 6 feet from Florence water. Residents of this city, like those in flood-prone communities in North Carolina, will be wondering if they will start again.

On Sunday, September 23, more than a week after Florence 's arrival ashore, Georgetown County officials asked more than 8,000 homes to evacuate. Many residents spent the weekend moving their belongings to pass the Waccamaw and Little Pee Dee rivers. The following day, the Waccamaw River in Horry County was still on the rise and is expected to be 4 feet above Matthew's in 2016 and Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

A hundred miles away, the owners of Carolina and Kure Beach had both their losses and their blessings. When they were allowed to return to the island, there was no electricity, but few people in Wilmington had it either, and Amy Rowlett said she and her husband would prefer to be without electricity at them at someone else's.

As Brandon removed the plywood from the windows, letting in some light, Amy rummaged through the closet to see what she could cook using the grill burner.

"I would not be a good pioneer," she said, but found a pot of marinara and spaghetti. When she served him in Brandon, she said, "I swear I thought he had a tear in his eyes."

Since the storm, Rowlett said, she has seen her neighbors cooking hot meals for first responders and collecting gift cards for utility crews who have been to a local high school for so long that they have no more money. shampoo and shaving cream. Islanders have begun to help one another with the cleanup and are looking for ways to help those whose incomes can not bear the blow of several days of lost work and nights in hotel rooms.

People continue to ask him: Why do you want to live in a place hit by hurricanes?

"Because it does not happen every day," Rowlett told them. "And now that I've seen how the community is coming together, we just could not imagine living anywhere else."

The information in this story is based on The News & Observer reports; The Charlotte Observer; The Myrtle Beach Sun News; Columbia, S.C. The State; the Wilmington Star News; the Wall Street Journal; The Associated Press; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the CN Department of Public Safety; and the websites of Cumberland County and the cities of Wilmington and Fayetteville.