The death toll from Hurricane Florence climbed to at least 37, including two mental health patients who drowned when a sheriff’s van was swept away by floodwaters, and North Carolina’s governor pleaded with thousands of evacuees not to return home just yet.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, arrived in storm-ravaged North Carolina on Wednesday (Thursday NZ Time) and helped volunteers at a church in the hard-hit coastal town of New Bern.
“How’s the house?” Trump was heard asking one person as he distributed plastic foam containers of food, including hot dogs, chips and fruit. “You take care of yourself.”
Thousands of others around the state waited in shelters for the all-clear.
“I know it was hard to leave home, and it is even harder to wait and wonder whether you even have a home to go back to,” Governor Roy Cooper said.
After submerging North Carolina with nearly 1 metre of rain, the storm dumped more than 16.5 centimetres of rain in the Northeast, where it caused flash flooding.