Residents Ordered to Evacuate in Pender County, North Carolina, as Hurricane Matthew's Flooding Persists

Pam Wright
Published: October 11,2016

Flooding from Hurricane Matthew continued to wreak havoc on North Carolina on Tuesday, leaving 17 dead and several counties under mandatory evacuation orders, including an unknown number of residents in Pender County.
WWAY-TV reported parts of the Black River Basin were quickly sinking under the rising floodwaters, and officials ordered many residents in the area to leave Tuesday afternoon. Shelters were opened for anyone who didn't have a place to go, the report added.
“The Black River is rising 3-5 inches per hour,” Emergency Management Director Tom Collins said in a Tuesday news release. “This is a mandatory evacuation. There are homes along the Black River that are already under water. Residents west of Moores Creek National Battlefield, including all roads connecting to Canetuck Road, need to leave their homes and businesses now.”
(MORE: How You Can Help the Victims)
President Barack Obama declared a federal emergency for 31 counties on Monday as floodwaters, and the death toll, continued to rise.
"Too many people have died," Gov. Pat McCrory said during his press conference. "Be careful — do not put other people's lives in danger."
More than 1,500 people were stranded Monday in Lumberton by flooding. Helicopter crews plucked people from rooftops and rescue boats helped the stranded find safety. Rescues were expected to continue Tuesday, AP reports.
Initially, the governor said the flooding in Lumberton was heightened by a suspected levee breach. However, the National Weather Service said later in the day that there had been no breach.
According to government officials, North Carolina has saved more than 2,000 people in over 600 rescue operations. Some 200 people were rescued from a flooded neighborhood in the Edgecombe County town of Pinetops. Another 70 were rescued from two hotels in Brunswick County, according to AP.
“North Carolina is resilient, our people are strong and we are going to get through this together,” McCrory said. “This storm is still impacting people in a big way. You have got to see it to believe all the devastation that has occurred.”

Mandatory evacuations have been issued in Kinston, Greenville, Princeville and all residents in the Neuse River Basin, McCrory said.
Early Tuesday, officials in Moore County began evacuating people along Cane Creek, downstream of Lake Surf, because the dam holding back the lake was near ready to break.
“Get out,” said McCrory to around 60 people still refusing to leave areas below the dam. “Get out now.”
A 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. curfew will be in place in Lenoir County and Kinston until further notice, according Lenoir County Emergency Services.
A North Carolina state trooper shot and killed an armed man during a search and rescue operation in Lumberton Monday night.
A trooper was riding with two Robeson County deputies on a Humvee through about four feet of flood waters around 8 p.m. Monday night when they confronted an angry man brandishing a gun, Highway Patrol Lt. Jeff Gordon said in a statement.
The State Bureau of Investigation is investigating. The names and races of the trooper and the man killed have not been released, AP reports.
McCrory said during Tuesday's press conference that the shooting happened under "very difficult circumstances."
According to the AP, the rising Tar River forced the evacuation Sunday of Princeville, North Carolina, the oldest town in the nation incorporated by freed slaves back in 1865.
Despite Matthew's exit, much of North Carolina remains under a threat of flooding and over 233,000 customers were without power as of 12 p.m. Tuesday, according to the state's department of public safety.
The Neuse River has already hit record levels at Smithfield and could crest at near record-level in Goldsboro on Tuesday. The North East Cape Fear River is expected to crest near Chinquapin sometime Wednesday, according to weather.com meteorologist Chris Dolce.
“This is going to be a prolonged event,” McCrory said. “Rocky Mount, Goldsboro, Kinston, Greenville – every town in between. We will have very serious issues.”
Edgecombe County announced on its Facebook page that buses were being brought in Sunday evening to evacuate 2,000 residents from the town that was razed by flooding from Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

17 Deaths Reported

Seventeen people have been killed in the state, most of them occurring when motorists were swept away on flooded roads, McCrory said during a Tuesday morning press conference.
One person was killed in Johnson County when their car was washed away, McCrory said Monday.
McCrory said during a press conference Saturday that one person died in Sampson County after their vehicle hydroplaned in heavy rain. Two others were killed in Bladen County when their vehicle became submerged.
A fourth victim drowned in Harnett County after the victim drove past a barricade and was swept away into a creek, the county sheriff told FOX8.

On Monday, officials announced that two people previously reported missing had been found safe. McCrory said Sunday that while North Carolina woke to sunny, blue skies, the state was still "facing massive destruction, and sadly, death."
Noting that "it's not over for North Carolina," the governor said he had signed an expedited Major Disaster Declaration. The declaration provides a wide range of federal assistance programs for individuals and public infrastructure, including funds for both emergency and permanent work, according to fema.org.

Thousands of Rescues

The number of rescues has been daunting, numbering in the thousands.
A 63-year-old woman, who was on her way home from her nursing job at a long-term care facility, clung to a tree for three hours after floodwaters from Hurricane Matthew swept her car into a canal in Wilson, AP reports.

North Carolina Highway Patrol troopers helped 25 vehicles after they became stranded on Interstate 95 Saturday. The cars got caught on a stretch of road between two parts of the flooded highway.
State officials say emergency responders have conducted at least 77 water rescues from cars and homes in Fayetteville alone, according to The News & Observer, including the dramatic rescue of a woman and her child from a car that got caught up in the floodwaters.
Hundreds more were reported in Cumberland County, according to the National Weather Service.
About a dozen residents from the South Estes public housing community, Brookwood Condominiums and Camelot Village were evacuated by The Chapel Hill Fire Department, according to The News & Observer.
The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 10 people in North Carolina, including eight from rooftops in Pinetops, reports AP.
According to a news release, an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew from Air Station Elizabeth City on Sunday morning and took the eight people to Pitt-Greenville Airport.
The Coast Guard rescued two other people stranded Saturday night when their fishing vessel ran aground in Shallotte.

A crew from Savannah, Georgia, hoisted the two about midnight and took them to the airport in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Their vessel, Kokopia, remains aground with 300 gallons of diesel fuel aboard.
Multiple water rescues took place in Johnston County Saturday, according to the National Weather Service. People were reportedly trapped in their homes and on top of vehicles.
Richard Neal and his fiancee were riding out the storm on top of Frying Pan Tower, an old Coast Guard light station more than 30 miles off the Atlantic Coast.
Neal now owns the tower and rents it out as a vacation home after purchasing it from the government after it was abandoned in 2004. The platform is about 100 or so feet above the ocean, with no land in sight.

"I can honestly say that this is a solid old beast," Neal told the AP on Saturday. "We are getting some amazingly huge waves that make it shake and tremor. But steel is amazingly tough."

(MORE: Hurricane Matthew: What We Know)

Neal said he believed the tower would be safe because he "accidentally" rode out Hurricane Arthur on it two years ago when he and his guests got trapped by the storm and couldn't leave. 

Neal said he coordinated with the Coast Guard and acknowledged he would be on his own should anything happen to the tower. He and his fiancee talked about going back to the mainland two or three times but made the decision to stay.

"You know she really must love me if she came out with me," he said.

As the hurricane inundated an already saturated state, authorities urged residents to remain vigilant and heed warnings.
"I cannot stress how serious an issue this hurricane could cause to North Carolina, not only in damaging structures but also risking human life,” McRory said at a press conference Saturday morning. He added that authorities are concerned that because the storm was downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane, residents would "let down their guard."
(MORE: Matthew Pounds South Carolina, Leaving Hundreds of Roads Impassable)
Parts of I-95 and I-40 remained closed in North Carolina on Tuesday.
Thirty-two school systems remain closed and the National Park Service reports that all visitor services and facilities at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, and Wright Brothers National Memorial remain closed until further notice.
The University of North Carolina at Wilmington canceled classes for Tuesday and East Carolina University has canceled classes for the remainder of the week. The ECU, Navy game scheduled for Thursday has been postponed until Nov. 19.

MORE: Hurricane Matthew, in Pictures