Florence plowed on Friday into the Carolinas and lumbered slowly inland, knocking down trees, gorging rivers, dumping sheets of rain, and leaving five people dead before it was downgraded to a tropical storm still capable of wreaking havoc.
Though Florence’s shrieking winds diminished from hurricane force as it came ashore, forecasters said the sheer size of the 350-mile-wide storm and its painfully slow progress across North and South Carolina in the coming days could leave much of the region under water.
The dead included a mother and baby who were killed when a tree fell on their home in Wilmington, North Carolina. The child’s injured father was taken to a hospital. In the state’s Pender County, a woman died of a heart attack; paramedics trying to reach her were blocked by debris.
Source: Reuters
