UNO News Net: Hurricane Florence kills 5, including infant, in North Carolina, officials say

An area in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina, usually meant for street parking and relaxing on park benches is inundated by water from the swollen Cape Fear River.

Updated 6:17 PM ET, Fri September 14, 2018

Michael Nelson floats in a boat made from a metal tub and fishing floats after the Neuse River went over its banks and flooded his street during Hurricane Florence September 13, 2018 in New Bern, North Carolina. Some parts of New Bern could be flooded with a possible 9-foot storm surge as the Category 2 hurricane approaches the United States.

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"water & bread shelves are completely empty in Walmart Wilmington Nc #HurricaneFlorence," Katie Ricketts posted on Twitter.

When asked by CNN how she is preparing she said:
"We are currently bringing all items from our yard and porch inside."

Credit: Katie Ricketts
Location: Wilmington, North Carolina
https://twitter.com/KatieRicketts_/status/1038814851009851392

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hurricane florence nc news station evacuation orig mg_00005828.jpg

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NS Slug: NC:FLORENCE-RIVER FLOODING REACHES WINDOWS (STRONG) Synopsis: Video of flooding from the Pungo River in Belhaven, NC, which has risen dramatically due to Hurricane Florence Video Shows: Video of flooding from the Pungo River in Belhaven, NC, which has risen dramatically due to Hurricane Florence Keywords: HURRICANE FLORENCE SOUTHEAST UNITED STATES SEVERE WEATHER STORM

Video shows floodwater fill garage

FROM EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY ASTRONAUT ALEXANDER GERST:
Watch out, America! #HurricaneFlorence is so enormous, we could only capture her with a super wide-angle lens from the @Space_Station, 400 km directly above the eye. Get prepared on the East Coast, this is a no-kidding nightmare coming for you. #Horizons
CLEARED: All platforms/affils
COURTESY: Alexander Gerst/ESA
PHOTOS: https://twitter.com/Astro_Alex/status/1039870760343543814

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065106 02: A man stands in a partially destroyed house September 27, 1989 in South Carolina. Hugo is ranked as the eleventh most intense hurricane to strike the US this century and is rated the second costliest with over seven billion dollars in damages. (Photo by Alan Weiner/Liaison)

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Are you affected by Tropical Storm Florence? When it's safe, text, iMessage or WhatsApp your videos, photos and stories to CNN: 347-322-0415

(CNN)At least five people, including a mother and her infant, have died in North Carolina as Tropical Storm Florence slowly moves through the Carolinas, officials said Friday.

After coming ashore as a Category 1 hurricane, Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm Friday afternoon.

Two people died in Wilmington after a tree fell on their house, the city's police department said.

"WPD can confirm the first two fatalities of Hurricane #Florence in Wilmington. A mother and infant were killed when a tree fell on their house," police tweeted Friday afternoon. "The father was transported to (New Hanover Regional Medical Center) with injuries."

An area in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina, usually meant for street parking and relaxing on park benches is inundated by water from the swollen Cape Fear River.

The hospital said it has received three injured patients.

In the town of Hampstead, emergency responders going to a call for cardiac arrest Friday morning found their path blocked by downed trees. When they got to the home, the woman was deceased, Chad McEwen, assistant county manager for Pender County, said.

The fourth person who died was a man in Lenoir County who was hooking up a generator, Gov. Roy Cooper's office said. Another man in the county who was checking on his dogs outside was killed in what his family thought was a wind-related death Friday morning, emergency officials said.

Florence is inching along after making landfall in North Carolina, trapping people in flooded homes and promising days of destruction and human suffering.

Storm surges, punishing winds and rain are turning some towns into rushing rivers -- and the storm is expected to crawl over parts of the Carolinas into the weekend, pounding some of the same areas over and over.

"The storm is going to continue its violent grind across our state for days," Cooper warned residents at a news conference.

Scores of people in New Bern, North Carolina, have been rescued

In the besieged city of New Bern, rescuers had plucked more than 200 people from rising waters by midmorning, but about 150 more had to wait as conditions worsened and a storm surge reached 10 feet, officials said. That number was down to 40 later in the day.

By Friday, Florence already had:

• Sapped power to more than 717,000 homes and businesses in North and South Carolina, emergency officials said.

• Forced 26,000 people into more than 200 emergency shelters across the Carolinas.

• Pushed more than 60 people to evacuate from a hotel in Jacksonville, North Carolina, after part of the roof collapsed, city officials said.

• Prompted 4,000 National Guard soldiers and 40,000 electric workers to mobilize in response.

• Canceled more than 1,100 flights along the East Coast on Friday and Saturday.

Follow the storm's path

Key developments

• Florence's location: By 5 p.m., Florence's center was about 25 miles northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and was crawling at 3 mph, with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph.

• Prolonged, dangerous winds: Tropical storm-force winds extend 175 miles from Florence's center. The storm is expected to lumber into far southeastern North Carolina and eastern South Carolina through Saturday, punishing the area with rain and damaging winds.

• Flooding for miles: Up to 40 inches of rain, and storm surges pushing water inland and not allowing rivers to drain, "will produce catastrophic flash flooding and prolonged significant river flooding," the National Hurricane Center says. "You're going to have flooding miles and miles inland," the center's director, Ken Graham, said.

How to help those impacted by Hurricane Florence

• Record gusts: Wilmington's airport recorded a 105-mph wind gust -- the fastest measured since Hurricane Helene hit the city in 1958, the National Hurricane Center said.

• Nuclear plant shutdown: A nuclear power plant in Brunswick, North Carolina, shut down operations because of the storm, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Twitter. "Plant procedures call for the reactors to be shut down before the anticipated onset of hurricane-force winds," agency spokesman Joey Ledford told CNN. Federal officials had said midweek they weren't concerned about that facility or five other nuclear plants in the storm's path, calling them "hardened." Expert scientists, however, had said they were worried about Brunswick because of scant public information about its readiness.