Hurricane Florence Is Dumping a Huge Amount of Rain on the Carolinas

Florence was expected to make landfall near Cape Fear, North Carolina, at midday, and forecasters said its size meant it could batter the U.S. East Coast with hurricane-force winds for almost a full day. And that's just the prelude to untold days of misery.

What also makes Florence extremely unsafe are the deadly storm surges, mammoth coastal flooding and historic rainfall expected far inland. "We will have catastrophic effects".

"This storm will bring destruction", said North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper. Categories only represent the speed of sustained winds, and these are still destructive.

One resident, 67-year-old Linda Smith, told the MailOnline: "We're a little anxious about the storm surge so we came down to see what the river is doing now".

The National Hurricane Center said a gauge north of Wilmington in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, reported 1.92 metres of inundation.

The worst of the storm's fury had yet to reach coastal SC, where emergency managers said it was not too late for people to get out. That's enough to fill more than 15 million Olympic-size swimming pools. Hurricane-force winds extended 130 kilometres from its centre, and tropical-storm-force winds up to 315 kilometres. When fierce winds keep up for a long time, homes are "going to start to deteriorate". So will the trees.

Corps staff can also help places needing temporary power, temporary roofing and housing and ill be part of preliminary damage assessments, Alexander said. The port city of Wilmington woke Friday to the sound of exploding electrical transformers with strong gusts throwing street signs and other debris as well as water in all directions, according to an AFP reporter at the scene. As the storm moves inland it will find a relatively flat area for hundreds of miles.

North Carolina's Emergency Management tweeted that more than 154,000 homes were already without electricity by late Thursday. "The center of the storm was about 145 miles (230 kilometers) southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina".

NHC Director Ken Graham said on Facebook the storm surges could push as far as 2 miles (3 km) inland.

The National Weather Service shared images of Union Point on the shore at New Bern before and after the storm surge hit.

"The sun rose this morning on an extremely risky situation and it's going to get worse", he said at a news conference in Raleigh. Firefighters and police fought wind and rain going door-to-door to pull people out after the cinderblock structure began to crumble and the roof began to collapse.

More than 12,000 were in shelters in North Carolina.

Airlines have cancelled more than 1,500 flights, and coastal towns across the Carolinas are largely empty after 1.7 million people in three states were told to clear out.

"Even the rescuers can not stay there", he said.

The coastal area of SC features hundreds of inlets while North Carolina has barrier islands miles away from the mainland. They also instituted a 24-hour curfew. "Flooding is nearly guaranteed".

Susan Faulkenberry Panousis has stayed in her Bald Head Island, North Carolina home during prior hurricanes, but not this time. She packed up what she could and took a ferry.

"I've never been one to leave for a storm but this one kind of had me spooked", he said.

So far, a state of emergency has been declared in five states - South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Maryland and Washington DC.

ISS astronauts have the best view of Earth available with a giant orbiting space station packed with cameras and portals to look out of.

'Get prepared on the East Coast, this is a no-kidding nightmare coming for you'.

Florence is one of four named storms in the Atlantic. In the Philippines, evacuations were under way with Super Typhoon Mangkhut expected to hit on Saturday in an area impacting an estimated 5.2 million people. Those four storms are brewing at the same time Hurricane Olivia is pounding Hawaii.