RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Searchers have found two more bodies inside vehicles that were submerged in flood waters in North Carolina from Hurricane Matthew, increasing the toll in the state to 26 dead.

Gov. Pat McCrory said at a news conference Saturday that the victims were found in Cumberland County and Wayne County after flood waters from last weekend’s rains receded.

Flooding triggered by the hurricane has killed at least 43 people in the United States and more than 500 people in Haiti.

McCrory says most of the people killed in his state either drove or were walking through flood waters and were swept away.

The governor says recovery from the flood continues even as waters continue to crest. Only 13,000 customers in the state remain without power. </s> Rising rivers caused more misery across Eastern North Carolina on Tuesday, where the Hurricane Matthew death toll climbed to 18 and residents in shelters feared for their homes.

Major roads were still closed in places, and water rescues continued. There was progress on power restoration, as outages slowly declined to 190,000 from Sunday’s peak of 800,000.

The scale of the disaster was enormous and shifting, as waters rose in some areas and receded in others. Conditions will worsen along the banks of the Tar and Neuse rivers, which will crest in Eastern North Carolina towns in the next three days – almost a week since the hurricane pounded an already saturated state with more than a foot of rain.

Most of the 18 deaths occurred from drowning, as motorists were swept away on flooded roads, Gov. Pat McCrory said in briefings. One man died in Wake County when a tree fell on his car.

“This is terrible news,” McCrory said late Tuesday, warning drivers not to look for shortcuts around roads blocked off because of flooding. That endangers first responders, he said, suggesting that officials would not send rescuers into situations that seemed too dangerous for them.

“Do not go through water!” the governor said. “We’re not messing around.”

More than 2,000 people had been rescued from swift-water teams in the eastern part of the state, mostly in Robeson and Cumberland counties. More than 400 high-water and rescue vehicles had been deployed, and 90 helicopter rescues had been conducted.

During the flooding in Lumberton, a state trooper shot and killed a man Monday night. The shooting happened about 8 p.m. on Fifth Street, where two Robeson sheriff’s deputies were conducting search-and-rescue operations with a patrol sergeant, the State Highway Patrol said in a news release. A man displayed a handgun and became hostile to the officers, the patrol said, and was then fatally shot by the sergeant, who was identified as J.F. Hinson, a 13-year veteran. The man who died was not identified; the shooting is being reviewed by the State Bureau of Investigation.

Elsewhere, Lenoir County and Kinston were under mandatory evacuation orders for residents near the Neuse River. Early Tuesday, officials in Moore County began evacuating people downstream of Lake Surf, because the dam holding back the lake was nearly ready to break, they said. Sandbags were piled at the dam to stabilize it, but the National Weather Service kept a flash-flood warning in effect.

About 4,000 people were in emergency shelters in central and eastern North Carolina – a quarter of those in the Lumberton area.

McCrory said he requested federal assistance for individuals as well as state and local governments for 66 counties. On Monday, 10 counties were approved for individual federal assistance and 31 counties were approved for public federal assistance. Late Tuesday, word came that federal aid would be available to individuals in four additional counties – Bertie, Johnston, Wayne and Wilson. Also, people in Beaufort, Bladen, Columbus, Cumberland, Edgecombe, Hoke, Lenoir, Nash, Pitt and Robeson counties are eligible for federal help.

Water and power returned to most parts of Johnston County on Tuesday, but those on county water service still were under a boil advisory. Johnston County Schools canceled class for students for the rest of the week. Johnston was hard hit, with hundreds of rescues and three fatalities.

The flooding could continue for several days as rivers and creeks swell. The Neuse River crested in Goldsboro on Tuesday night at a record 29 feet, while the Tar River is expected to rise to 35 feet in Tarboro on Wednesday afternoon and 25 feet in Greenville on Wednesday night. The Neuse is forecast to rise to 27 feet on Friday.

At an emergency shelter at Tarboro High School, which housed 140 people Monday night, those who had been evacuated from Princeville and Tarboro along the Tar River worried about their homes. Many had lived there when Hurricane Floyd flooded them out in 1999.

“Not knowing exactly what the next move is going to be, that’s hard,” said Regina Brooks, a 27-year-old Princeville resident who had been staying in the shelter with her 1-year-old and 2-year-old daughters and her mother since Sunday.

Just a few streets away, closer to the river that divides Princeville from Tarboro, emergency vehicles blocked both ends of the bridge that links the two Edgecombe County towns.

But on a warm October day, with clear blue skies and temperatures in the high 60s, many residents walked across the bridge, taking pictures of the swift-moving Tar River and comparing its spillover to Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Rick Page, a former Tarboro mayor who also was a utility director when Floyd spurred massive flooding, said the Tar River was not as high Tuesday as it had been after Floyd. He pointed to a grassy dike on the Princeville side. If the river spilled over the dike, he said, that would mean big trouble for the Princeville residents.

But the people on the bridge watched the water and hoped for the best. </s> TARBORO, N.C. (Reuters) - Floodwaters inundated the historic black town of Princeville, North Carolina, on Thursday, leaving homes submerged to their roof lines as the state’s death toll in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew climbed to 22.

Local residents gather on their front porch as a child shoots a BB gun while they seek refuge from flood waters due to Hurricane Matthew in Lumberton, North Carolina, October 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Flooding from the Tar River had been expected in Princeville, which was founded in 1885 and believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, and most of its 2,000 residents evacuated.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory described a dramatic rise in the water level in the town, long been plagued by flooding and devastated by floods after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Areas that had about a foot of water on Thursday morning were covered in up to 12 feet by afternoon, he said.

“Princeville is basically under water at this time,” McCrory told a news conference after flying over the town. “You gotta see it to believe it.”

The governor praised the town’s residents for heeding evacuation orders, saying no one there had died.

However, McCrory announced two additional fatalities after the storm death toll rose to 20 late on Wednesday. The latest victims included someone who drowned in Lenoir County after driving around a barricade for a washed-out roadway. Most of the state’s deaths from the hurricane have been drownings, he said.

“Stay off the roads,” McCrory said. “Stay out of the water.”

More than 30 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew, with a fourth death announced in South Carolina by that state’s governor on Thursday. Before hitting the southeast U.S. coast, the fierce storm killed around 1,000 people on its rampage through Haiti last week.

The recovery effort in central and eastern North Carolina is expected to take weeks or months. So far, the federal government has disbursed about $2.6 million to individual flooding victims and approved $5 million for emergency road repairs. </s> Flooding from the Tar River had been expected in Princeville, which was founded in 1885 and believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, and most of its 2,000 residents evacuated.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory described a dramatic rise in the water level in the town, long been plagued by flooding and devastated by floods after Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Areas that had about a foot of water on Thursday morning were covered in up to 12 feet by afternoon, he said.

"Princeville is basically under water at this time," McCrory told a news conference after flying over the town. "You gotta see it to believe it."

The governor praised the town's residents for heeding evacuation orders, saying no one there had died.

However, McCrory announced two additional fatalities after the storm death toll rose to 20 late on Wednesday. The latest victims included someone who drowned in Lenoir County after driving around a barricade for a washed-out roadway. Most of the state's deaths from the hurricane have been drownings, he said.

"Stay off the roads," McCrory said. "Stay out of the water."

More than 30 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew, with a fourth death announced in South Carolina by that state's governor on Thursday. Before hitting the southeast U.S. coast, the fierce storm killed around 1,000 people on its rampage through Haiti last week.

The recovery effort in central and eastern North Carolina is expected to take weeks or months. So far, the federal government has disbursed about $2.6 million to individual flooding victims and approved $5 million for emergency road repairs. </s> Florence Death Toll Rises To 23 As Rivers Continue To Flood In N.C. And S.C.

People in North Carolina and South Carolina are coping with flooding, closed roads and power outages as they assess damage from Hurricane Florence. The storm is blamed for at least 23 deaths, and life-threatening floods are expected to continue all this week, the National Weather Service says.

"As of this morning, North Carolina has 17 confirmed deaths due to this storm," Gov. Roy Cooper said in an update at noon ET on Monday. An additional six deaths have been reported in South Carolina.

The tragic toll in North Carolina includes a toddler who died in Union County; Kaiden Lee-Welch, 1, was swept away from his mother, whose car had been overcome by floodwaters. The local sheriff's office said Kaiden's mother had apparently driven around barricades on Highway 218. A prolonged search and rescue operation led to the recovery of the boy's body Monday.

Particularly in eastern North Carolina, conditions "remain extremely dangerous," Cooper said. He added: "Don't drive around barricades. We're seeing this happen now, and the result is not good."

For many towns in the state, "the danger is still immediate," Cooper said, despite the promise of clearing skies as rainy weather finally starts to leave the state.

Emergency crews have rescued 2,600 people and more than 300 animals, Cooper said. He added that there are currently more than 14,000 evacuees in shelters in his state.

Flooded roads forced officials to plan to airlift food into Wilmington, near where Florence made landfall early Friday. North Carolina's Emergency Management agency said it delivered "23 truckloads of MREs and bottled water to Wilmington overnight."

"There are no roads ... that are leading into Wilmington [N.C.] that are passable because of the flooding," Mayor Bill Saffo told member station WHQR on Sunday.

More than 1,100 North Carolina roads remained closed on Monday, including parts of I-95 and I-40, the N.C. Department of Transportation said. Parts of I-95 were also closed in South Carolina, along with a number of highways in the eastern portion of the state.

Wilmington Deputy Fire Chief Jon Mason — who spent Sunday night sleeping on the floor in his office — told NPR's Morning Edition that the rain has stopped in his town — "but it's still a bit chaotic, lots of trees down, power lines down."

The recovery effort is underway, Mason said. And emergency crews have performed more than 250 water rescues in the past 48 hours, with local fire crews teaming up with Indiana Task Force 1, a FEMA task force.

Calls for help came via phone calls, texts, Facebook messages and other means, Mason said.

Nearly 485,000 customers in North Carolina and 15,000 in South Carolina are without power. Many schools remain closed or have delayed opening times — prolonging a disruption that began in many places last Tuesday, when evacuation orders took effect.

Images from beaches along the coastline show devastated dunes — their sand spread flat over streets and yards. In one striking photo, two houses were left standing on their pilings — but the dunes in front of them have vanished.

Thousands of people are in shelters in North Carolina. More than 2 feet of rain has fallen in some areas, and many rivers hadn't yet reached their crest on Monday, as they struggle to deal with four days of heavy rain from the large Category 1 hurricane.

"Most main-stem rivers across central N.C. will flood," the National Weather Service office in Raleigh said on Monday, adding, "the Neuse, Cape Fear, Haw, Deep, Rocky and Little Rivers are currently in flood."

The Cape Fear River at Fayetteville is forecast to hit a crest height of nearly 62 feet — far above the 59 feet it hit during Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

Florence, which is now a tropical depression, devastated homes with its storm surge and strong winds. Its torrential rains also brought flooding that cut off hundreds of vital roads and highways — including Interstate 95 — complicating relief efforts and frustrating evacuees who have sought to return to coastal areas.

Hundreds of thousands of people obeyed evacuation orders along the Carolina coast. Some of them tried to return home on Sunday, only to be stymied by closed roads, as creeks and rivers continued to flood.

Along Highway 74 — one of the main arteries that connects Wilmington to inland areas — member station WFAE's David Boraks reports:

"Due to flooding in southern, central and eastern N.C.," the state's transportation agency told motorists they should "not travel through these parts of the state."

Disasters have been declared in eight North Carolina counties along the coast.

In Kinston, where water overran the banks of the Neuse River in the city in eastern North Carolina, a crowd of people gathered on Riverbank Road to look at the changed landscape of Neuseway Nature Park.

"Lots and lots of water. Like, you can't see the swings anymore," Lashieka Becton said, describing the scene to NPR's Brakkton Booker. "You can't see the parking lot anymore, just ... I don't know what to think."

At Mother Earth Brewing, educators Tori and Wes Hazelgrove told Brakkton that they're tired of this storm.

"We're just kind of in a period of waiting to see like, how bad is it going to get," said Wes Hazelgrove, who said he spent days preparing for the storm. "It's like a period of being in limbo."

Farther inland, flooding hit "a number of roads" in Durham County, N.C., Monday morning, the sheriff's department said. The agency said more than a dozen roads were closed because of high water.

In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster has lifted all evacuation orders for the state, but residents still face delays and detours as they try to find roads to take them home, and farmers report finding their crops inundated with floodwater.

Outside Myrtle Beach, a stretch of the normally busy Highway 501 was reopened early Monday. But closer to the coast, work crews were hoping a flood barrier would make the road — or at least half of it — safe to use.

On Monday, President Trump declared a major disaster in South Carolina, listing eight counties: Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester, Georgetown, Horry, Marion, Orangeburg and Williamsburg.

The president had already issued a similar declaration for North Carolina, easing the flow of federal aid to the states. Cooper said 18 North Carolina counties have been declared disaster areas, with more likely to follow. </s> KINSTON, N.C. - Officials in North Carolina said they would go door to door on Wednesday urging people to leave low-lying areas as rivers swollen by rainfall from Hurricane Matthew continue to rise, threatening homes and resulting in more drownings.

Floodwaters have swamped areas across the central and eastern part of the state, forcing more than 3,800 residents to flee to shelters, closing down stretches of major interstate highways and shuttering 34 school systems, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory said.

McCrory said the death toll in the state had risen to 19, mostly due to drowning. That figure represents more than half of the deaths in the U.S. Southeast linked to the fierce Atlantic storm, which killed some 1,000 people in Haiti and displaced hundreds of thousands more as it tore through the Caribbean last week.

"Do not get near the water," McCrory said at a news conference in Raleigh. "It will kill you."

Matthew's aftermath drew comparisons to Hurricane Floyd, which triggered devastating floods in North Carolina in 1999 and caused more than $3 billion in damages in the state.

In Kinston, where the Neuse River is expected to peak on Saturday just shy of the Floyd record, Mayor B.J. Murphy warned residents on Wednesday not to be fooled by the beautiful fall weather and clear skies.

"We want you out, and we want you out now," he said in an interview on WITN television news. "This is a very dangerous situation."

Kinston resident Toby Hatch, 60, who lived through Floyd and Hurricane Irene, which destroyed his home in 2011, heeded the city's evacuation order this week and headed to a shelter.

"I didn’t really want to leave, but I was already looking at enough water that I was trapped," he said.

Evacuations also continued in Greenville, where the Tar River was 10 feet above flood stage and forecast to crest even higher by Friday. Flooding has forced the city's airport to close and classes were canceled for the week for East Carolina University's 28,000 students. </s> Rain-gorged rivers threatened further flooding in storm-battered North Carolina on Monday as the death toll from Hurricane Florence, now a tropical depression, rose to 23.

"River flooding is dynamic and it's happening all over our state," North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told reporters.

"This is an epic storm that is still continuing," Cooper said. "This is a monumental disaster for our state."

A tornado watch was issued for parts of North and South Carolina as emergency management officials also warned of the potential for dam failures and landslides.

Cooper said there have been 17 confirmed storm-related deaths in North Carolina from Florence, which made landfall on the state's Atlantic coast on Friday as a Category 1 hurricane. "We hope there are not more," he said.

At least six deaths have been confirmed in neighboring South Carolina with the latest being the driver of a pickup truck who drove into standing water in Lexington County.

More than a dozen rivers across North Carolina were at major flood stage on Monday or threatening to rise to critical levels.

"Many roads in our state are still at risk of floods," Cooper said, warning people who have been evacuated not to return home yet and others not to go out if they do not need to. "Please don't make yourself someone who needs to be rescued," he said.

Wilmington, on the banks of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, was almost completely cut off by land but emergency management teams managed to truck food and water overnight into the port city of 120,000 people.

North Carolina emergency department officials said 23 truckloads of Meals, Ready to Eat -- packaged U.S. military rations -- and crates of bottled water had been sent into Wilmington.

"We're dealing with some very, very tough situations with respect to the impassable roads coming into the city of Wilmington," Mayor Bill Saffo told residents on Twitter. "As the water recedes things will get better.

"We're going to be OK," Saffo said. "We're going to get through this."

The National Weather Service released rainfall totals as of 2:00 pm (1800 GMT) for parts of North Carolina. The largest amount so far was in Elizabethtown, which has received 35.93 inches (0.91 meters).

The most rainfall recorded in South Carolina was in the town of Loris, where 23.81 inches (0.6 meters) fell.

More than 300 people remained Monday morning at a shelter on the campus of the University of North Carolina in Raleigh, the state capital which escaped the brunt of the storm.

Thomas Hammett, of Otway, North Carolina, said he has been in the shelter for nearly a week with his two children, Jerry, 11, Christopher, three.

"We had to evacuate. It was too dangerous to stay," Hammett said. "Some people have died down there."

"The neighbors told us our home was fine apart from a few branches down, so that's a relief at least," he added.

"We can't wait to go back home and live a normal life again, hopefully on Wednesday."

In Fayetteville, the Cape Fear River was expected to reach major flood stage at 58 feet (17.6 meters) on Monday and to hit nearly 62 feet (18.9 meters) on Tuesday before receding.

More than half a million customers in the Carolinas were still without electricity on Monday, according to emergency officials.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned that Florence continues to dump heavy rain on parts of North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina.

"Flash flooding will continue over portions of the western mid-Atlantic regions," the NHC said.

The National Weather Service said there is an "elevated risk for landslides" in North Carolina. State officials said there had been a small dam breach that did not cause any significant damage and they were monitoring other structures closely.

Numerous roads across eastern North Carolina were blocked by fallen trees and flooding including parts of I-95, a major north-south artery.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen visited North Carolina on Monday to discuss the response and recovery efforts and tour flood-affected areas.

President Donald Trump has also announced plans to visit the flood-hit region this week but a date has not yet been set.

"We're going to need significant resources to recover," Cooper, the North Carolina governor, said. </s> LUMBERTON, N.C./KINSTON, N.C. — Flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew has displaced several thousand people in North Carolina, and authorities were helping more evacuate on Tuesday, Oct. 11, as swollen rivers threatened a wide swath of the state.

Governor Pat McCrory warned of "extremely dangerous" conditions in the coming days in central and eastern North Carolina, where several rivers were at record or near-record levels.

Matthew, the most powerful Atlantic storm since 2007, killed at least 1,000 people in Haiti last week before barreling up the U.S. southeastern coast and causing at least 30 deaths in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

McCrory's office said four additional deaths were confirmed on Tuesday in North Carolina, raising the death toll in the state to 18. One person was reported as missing.

An additional U.S. death occurred on Monday night in Lumberton, North Carolina, where officials said a highway patrol officer fatally shot a man who became hostile and flashed a handgun during search-and-rescue efforts in fast-running floodwater.

Nearly 4,000 people have taken refuge in North Carolina shelters, including about 1,200 people in the hard-hit Lumberton area, where the Lumber River had crested at almost 4 feet above the prior record set in 2004 after Hurricane Frances.

Water blanketed the city of 21,000 people, leaving businesses flooded, homes with water up to their roof lines and drivers stranded after a stretch of Interstate-95 became impassable.

"We lost everything," said Sarah McCallum, 62, who was staying in a shelter set up in an agricultural center after floodwaters drove her from her home of 20 years.

State officials are particularly concerned about victims like McCallum, who have no flood insurance because they do not live in areas typically prone to inundation. U.S. President Barack Obama on Monday signed a disaster declaration for North Carolina, which will make federal funding available to people in the hardest-hit areas.

Obama approved a similar declaration on Tuesday for South Carolina, where Matthew made landfall on Saturday. State officials are now urging residents to prepare for potential flooding from the Waccamaw and Little Pee Dee rivers.

About 532,000 homes and businesses remained without power in the U.S. Southeast on Tuesday, down from the peak of around 2.2 million on Sunday morning when the storm was still battering the Carolina coasts.

Matthew dumped more than a foot of rain in areas of North Carolina already soaked from heavy September rainfall. It has triggered the worst flooding in the state since Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, the National Weather Service said.

That storm caused devastating floods in North Carolina, resulting in 35 deaths, 7,000 destroyed homes and more than $3 billion in damages in the state.

In Matthew's wake, officials are monitoring a number of overtopped or breaching dams in addition to the threat of inland river flooding, the governor's office said.

Concerns about a potential breach of the Woodlake Dam, which led to overnight evacuations in the central North Carolina town of Spring Lake, had eased by Tuesday afternoon after it was reinforced with 700 sandbags, but a mandatory evacuation was still in effect for nearby residents.

McCrory warned that the Tar River was expected to crest on Wednesday in Greenville, where a mandatory evacuation order is already in place.

Officials remain concerned about Kinston, where significant flooding was already occurring from the Neuse River, which is expected to crest at about 27 feet on Saturday, just shy of the Floyd record.

Retired construction worker Wesley Turner, 71, said he fled his home near Kinston with his dogs on Friday after his power went out and the water quickly rose to about chest deep.

After several nights in a shelter, he did not know on Tuesday whether he had anything to return to.

"I can't get to my house because it is under water," Turner said. </s> People in North Carolina and South Carolina are coping with flooding, closed roads and power outages as they assess damage from Hurricane Florence. The storm is blamed for at least 23 deaths, and life-threatening floods are expected to continue all this week, the National Weather Service says.

"As of this morning, North Carolina has 17 confirmed deaths due to this storm," Gov. Roy Cooper said in an update at noon ET on Monday. An addition six deaths have been reported in South Carolina.

The tragic toll in North Carolina includes a toddler who died in Union County: Kaiden Lee Welch, 1, was swept away from his mother, whose car had been overcome by floodwaters. The local sheriff's office said Welch's mother had apparently driven around barricades on Highway 218. A prolonged search led to the recovery of the boy's body Monday.

For many towns in the state, "the danger is still immediate," Cooper said, despite the promise of clearing skies as rainy weather finally starts to leave the state.

Particularly in eastern North Carolina, conditions "remain extremely dangerous," Cooper said. He added, "Don't drive around barricades. We're seeing this happen now, and the result is not good."

Emergency crews have rescued 2,600 people and more than 300 animals, Cooper said. He added that there are currently more than 14,000 evacuees in shelters in his state.

Flooded roads forced officials to plan to airlift food into Wilmington, near where Florence made landfall early Friday. North Carolina's Emergency Management agency says it delivered "23 truckloads of MREs and bottled water to Wilmington overnight."

"There are no roads ... that are leading into Wilmington [N.C.] that are passable because of the flooding," Mayor Bill Saffo told member station WHQR on Sunday.

More than 1,100 North Carolina roads remain closed on Monday, including parts of I-95 and I-40, the N.C. Department of Transportation says. Parts of I-95 were also closed in South Carolina, along with a number of highways in the eastern portion of the state.

Wilmington Deputy Fire Chief Jon Mason — who spent last night sleeping on the floor in his office — tells NPR's Morning Edition that the rain has stopped in his town — "but it's still a bit chaotic, lots of trees down, power lines down."

The recovery effort is under way, Mason said. And emergency crews have performed more than 250 water rescues in the past 48 hours, with local fire crews teaming up with Indiana Task Force 1, a FEMA task force.

Calls for help came via phone calls, texts, Facebook messages and other means, Mason said.

Nearly 485,000 customers in North Carolina and 15,000 in South Carolina are without power. Many schools remain closed or have delayed opening times — prolonging a disruption that began in many places last Tuesday, when evacuation orders took effect.

Images from beaches along the coastline show devastated dunes — their sand spread flat over streets and yards. In one striking photo, two houses were left standing on their pilings — but the dunes in front of them have vanished.

Thousands of people are in shelters in North Carolina. More than two feet of rain has fallen in some areas, and many rivers haven't yet reached their crest on Monday, as they struggle to deal with four days of heavy rain from the large Category 1 hurricane.

"Most main-stem rivers across central N.C. will flood," the National Weather Service office in Raleigh said on Monday, adding, "the Neuse, Cape Fear, Haw, Deep, Rocky and Little Rivers are currently in flood."

The Cape Fear River at Fayetteville is forecast to hit a crest height of nearly 62 feet – far above the 59 feet it hit during Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

Florence, which is now a tropical depression, devastated homes with its storm surge and strong winds. Its torrential rains also brought flooding that cut off hundreds of vital roads and highways — including Interstate 95 — complicating relief efforts and frustrating evacuees who have sought to return to coastal areas.

Hundreds of thousands of people obeyed evacuation orders along the Carolina coast. Some of them tried to return home on Sunday, only to be stymied by closed roads, as creeks and rivers continued to flood.

Along Highway 74 — one of the main arteries that connects Wilmington to inland areas — member station WFAE's David Boraks reports:



" I found Joe Jacob sitting on the curb with his dog at a closed gas station at a crossroads in Bolton, in Columbus County. " 'Cause you can't go anywhere. Simple as that. It's flooded out everywhere. We were trying to get back home from Raleigh," he said. "Just gonna hang out, just gonna have to wait. "He was right — you couldn't go anywhere. At that moment, roads in all four directions were flooded in some way."



"Due to flooding in southern, central and eastern N.C.," the state's transportation agency told motorists they should "not travel through these parts of the state."

Disasters have been declared in eight North Carolina counties along the coast.

In Kinston, where water overran the banks of the Neuse River in the city in eastern North Carolina, a crowd of people gathered on Riverbank Road to look at the changed landscape of Neuseway Nature Park.

"Lots and lots of water. Like, you can't see the swings anymore," Lashieka Becton said, describing the scene to NPR's Brakkton Booker. "You can't see the parking lot anymore, just ... I don't know what to think."

At Mother Earth Brewing, educators Tori and Wes Hazelgrove told Brakkton that they're tired of this storm.

"We're just kind of in a period of waiting to see like, how bad is it going to get," said, who says he spent days preparing for the storm. "It's like a period of being in limbo."

Further inland, flooding hit "a number of roads" in Durham County, N.C., Monday morning, the sheriff's department said. The agency said more than a dozen roads were closed due to high water.

In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster has lifted all evacuation orders for the state, but residents still face delays and detours as they try to find roads to take them home, and farmers report finding their crops inundated with floodwater.

Outside of Myrtle Beach, a stretch of the normally busy Highway 501 was reopened early Monday. But closer to the coast, work crews were hoping a flood barrier would make the road — or at least half of it — safe to use.

On Monday, President Trump declared a major disaster in South Carolina, listing eight counties: Berkeley, Charleston, Dorchester, Georgetown, Horry, Marion, Orangeburg, and Williamsburg.

The president had already issued a similar declaration for North Carolina, easing the flow of federal aid to the states.
The death toll in North Carolina rises to 22 as flood waters continue to rise. Governor Pat McCrory says places that had a foot of water in the morning, were under 12 feet of water.