The Jim Bakker Show

North Carolina town may never fully recover from double whammy of storms

Katrina Bullock, who is still in the process of rebuilding after floods from Hurricane Matthew in 2016, stacks debris in front of her home after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

By Randall Hill

FAIR BLUFF, N.C. (Reuters) – The childhood home Katrina Bullock returned to in the rural North Carolina community of Fair Bluff about 16 years ago to care for her sick mother was devastated by flooding from Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

A new roof went up after that. Walls saturated with muddy floodwaters were being replaced and things were looking up until a new storm, Hurricane Florence struck about 23 months later in September.

Katrina Bullock, who is still in the process of rebuilding after floods from Hurricane Matthew in 2016, cleans the inside of her home after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

“We were starting to get it all back together and there comes Florence, and it takes it all again,” said Bullock.

She and other residents of Fair Bluff, and of many other communities in the southern and southeast parts of North Carolina hit by the double whammy of Matthew and Florence, are sorting through the latest wreckage, wondering if it is worth remaining.

Settlers first arrived in the area around Fair Bluff in the mid-1700s and one of the oldest buildings in Columbus County, where the town is located, is a trading post built on the banks of the Lumber River in the town, according to the local chamber of commerce. In the 19th century, railroads helped keep the economy

flowing.

Experts say such hamlets and towns face permanent changes, with fewer residents, fewer businesses and fewer prospects of returning to the way things were just a generation ago. Older residents whose roots run deep and those too poor to leave will soon likely make up the bulk of the population.

Those who can will leave, but others will do their best to rebuild.

A sign in front of the Fair Bluff United Methodist Church gives a message to the community after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

“There will be a real desire to make Fair Bluff the best it can be, but it may look and be a different thing from what it has historically been,” said Patrick Woodie, president of the NC Rural Center, an economic development organization.

Even before Florence hit, many small towns in North Carolina were struggling due to a decline in agriculture and manufacturing. Poverty rates in the state are higher now than in the aftermath of the recession about a decade ago due to the loss of small industries such as textile and a downturn in the farming sector, according to the North Carolina Justice Center, a progressive research and advocacy organization.

Matthew led to catastrophic flooding throughout low-lying eastern North Carolina and caused billions of dollars in damage. In took 28 lives in the United States while Florence killed more than 50 and drove many rural communities into deeper despair.

Fair Bluff is a mostly agricultural community with a Main Street book-ended by two churches and nestled next to the Lumber River, a usually peaceful waterway that flooded during both Matthew and Florence.

The town’s small commercial area was struggling to get back into business after Matthew and inundated again with Florence. Many wonder if it will ever open again.

Randy Britt take a break as he works to clean one of his downtown buildings after flooding due to Hurricane Florence receded in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S. September 29, 2018. REUTERS/Randall Hill

Almost all the stores on Main Street closed after Matthew and when Florence rolled in, the floodwaters brought fresh destruction to places like a furniture shop that had yet to remove all of its water-logged inventory from two years ago.

After the flooding from Florence receded, a dark muck covered floors in affected areas and a smell wafted through the air combining odors of moldy rot and a sewage plant that overflowed in the most recent storm.

Fair Bluff Mayor Billy Hammond believes the town had about 1,000 residents before Matthew and was left with about half that afterward, with many evacuees just never returning.

The permanent population now is probably about 350 to 400, most of them are people whose homes were not flooded, he said.

“It has been a ghost town for about two years,” he said in an interview. “We’re just going have to take it one day at a time and move forward and hope that people come back,” he said.

Fair Bluff is about 125 miles (200 km) south of Raleigh. About 21 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and median household income is $28,611, according to U.S. Census data. In Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, home to the vibrant city of Charlotte, median household income is more than double that in Fair Bluff and the poverty rate is about half.

In low-lying areas near the river where some of the poorest people in Fair Bluff live, many have returned to storm-damaged homes because they do not have the money to move or rebuild.A disproportionate number of low-income people live in floodplains in river communities, according to Gavin Smith, a professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Randy Britt, 71, who has lived in Fair Bluff all his life

owns buildings on the Main Street commercial area and is working to re-open a flood-hit store.

“There is always hope. If there wasn’t hope, I wouldn’t be in Fair Bluff right now,” he said in an interview.

(Additional reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Frank McGurty and Tom Brown)

Looming Hurricane Florence heaps despair on rural U.S. towns ravaged by 2016 storm

Eve Waddell, daughter Ella, 6, and her husband, acting police chief of Chadbourn, North Carolina, Anthony Spivey, take stock out in the backyard of their home ahead of Hurricane Florence in Fair Bluff, North Carolina, U.S., September 12, 2018. REUTERS/Patrick Rucker

By Patrick Rucker

FAIR BLUFF, N.C. (Reuters) – When Hurricane Matthew submerged the small town of Fair Bluff, North Carolina, two years ago, Eve Waddell thought she had witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime disaster.

“You’ll never see that again,” she reassured her daughter Ella, then 4, after floodwaters surged over the banks of the Lumber River, inundating Fair Bluff with several feet of water and damaging her house.

As Hurricane Florence barreled toward the state on Wednesday, Waddell packed up her family to seek shelter with relatives and said she was ready to leave town for good – just as many businesses and hundreds of residents did after Matthew in 2016.

“This old town’s had it,” said her husband, Anthony Spivey, the police chief in a nearby municipality.

Meteorologists warn the menacing storm could stall out over the Carolinas, dumping enormous amounts of rainfall and creating massive flooding.

That was the case with Matthew, a less powerful hurricane that did most of its damage inland, producing catastrophic levels of flooding throughout low-lying eastern North Carolina and causing billions of dollars in damages.

Rural, low-income communities like Fair Bluff – already beset by economic difficulties – were hardest hit and remain most at risk this week.

Approximately 125 miles (200 km) south of Raleigh, Fair Bluff is 38 percent white and 60 percent African-American, with a median household income of $17,000, according to state figures.

Its downtown district has been a virtual ghost town since Matthew, with a dozen empty storefronts still bearing the marks of the storm’s fury.

A grimy scar cuts across retail windows, marking the height of the flooding. In a furniture shop, neatly arranged bedroom sets moldered; an abandoned hardware store was still stocked with ovens, washing machines and refrigerators.

Before the storm, Fair Bluff had nearly 1,000 residents, said Al Leonard, the town’s part-time administrator. He estimated more than a quarter left and have not returned since Matthew.

“We base our calendar on B.C. or A.D.,” Leonard said. “In Fair Bluff, they base their calendar on Before Matthew and After Matthew. Matthew changed everything.”

RURAL DEVASTATION

Other rural communities around the state’s eastern half tell a similar story.

Lumberton, a larger nearby town of approximately 21,000 people along the Lumber River, saw nearly 900 homes severely damaged by Matthew, including hundreds of low-income renters who lost their residences, according to a state report.

In Princeville, known as the oldest community settled by freed slaves in the United States, hundreds of homes were severely damaged by flooding from the Tar River.

The agricultural community of Goldsboro, along the Neuse River, saw hundreds of homes and substantial livestock destroyed.

Many low-income communities were already buffeted by a decline in manufacturing and agriculture, as well as the aftermath of the 2007-09 recession, according to Barry Ryan, vice president of the nonprofit NC Rural Center, which helps support rural counties.

“These communities are aging rapidly,” he said. “There’s been a general market downturn – somewhat driven by population loss, somewhat driven by economic restructuring.”

Jeff Axelberg, a member of Fair Bluff’s Chamber of Commerce who markets sweet potatoes, said the farmers he works with are worried because Florence is arriving so early in the season, with only about 10 percent of the crop in.

“They’re working day and night to get what they can out of the ground,” he said.

Long-term solutions are elusive. Some in town have suggested recruiting a canoe operator or other tourist draw to Fair Bluff, turning the river from a liability into an opportunity, Axelberg said.

Residents and business owners have often found it challenging to navigate state and federal bureaucracies in search of recovery and repair funds.

In many communities, homeowners are only now starting to receive money through the state’s hazard mitigation grant program to sell, elevate or rebuild their homes.

The smallest towns are also hamstrung by a lack of administrative capacity. Leonard, Fair Bluff’s administrator, also serves as the town’s water system supervisor, town planner and budget director.

He spends one day per week in Fair Bluff because he also holds the position of town administrator for four other nearby municipalities.

On Wednesday, he watched as laborers laid brick for a police office extension off the back of Fair Bluff’s town hall, which officials moved to just outside the flood zone after Matthew.

“Last time, this was high ground,” Leonard said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

(Reporting by Patrick Rucker in Fair Bluff, North Carolina; Additional reporting and writing by Joseph Ax in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Lisa Shumaker)

U.S. citizens targeted after extradition of Haiti ex-coup leader

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haitian police have evacuated some 50 U.S. citizens to safety after attempted attacks by supporters of Haitian Senator-elect Guy Philippe, who was arrested and extradited to the United States last week, a police official said on Monday.

Philippe, long wanted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and remembered for his role in a 2004 coup against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was elected senator for the southwestern Grand’Anse region in polls on Nov. 20.

But on Thursday, days before he was supposed to be sworn in, police arrested him outside of a radio station and flew him to the United States, where a Miami court charged him with money laundering and drug trafficking. Philippe denies the charges.

The extradition has stirred tensions in Grand’Anse, an area that is rebuilding after damages inflicted by Hurricane Matthew last October and where Philippe enjoys popularity.

Supporters of Philippe have clashed with political opponents in the streets, burned two police vehicles and attacked several police stations, forcing officers to flee, said Berson Soljour, a police commissioner in Grand’Anse.

Philippe supporters are also believed to have attacked two U.S. citizens who ran an orphanage and stole their passports and other belongings from their home, police officials said.

Police have evacuated more than 50 U.S. citizens to safer places in Haiti since Friday, Soljour said, who advised those who chose to stay not to leave their residences. Higher than usual numbers of U.S. citizens are in the region helping with hurricane recovery.

U.S. citizens were evacuated to a police station before moving to a United Nations base, where they waited for preparations to fly them to Port-au-Prince, Soljour said. Some have been flown to the capital, while others are still waiting.

“There are groups linked to Guy Philippe that were actively seeking to attack or capture U.S. citizens following (his) arrest and extradition,” Soljour said.

A spokesman for the U.S. embassy, Karl Adam, said the embassy was aware of the threats and has sent messages to citizens to advise them to avoid certain areas and to be particularly careful.

“I know some have decided to leave and this is not something the embassy is organizing”, Adam said.

More protests were scheduled to take place over the next several days in Grand’Anse and in Port-au-Prince, including outside the U.S. embassy.

Some 200 protesters massed at a barricade across the street from parliament on Monday as new senators were sworn into office, with about half denouncing Philippe’s arrest with slogans, T-shirts and waving signs.

(Editing by Makini Brice and Michael Perry)

Haitians are suffering! Help is arriving but it is not enough!

Prenille Nord, 42, poses for a photograph with his children Darline and Kervins among the debris of their destroyed house after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti,

By Kami Klein

Over the past decade, Haitians have suffered more natural calamity than any people in the world. On January 12th, 2010 the Haitian people were devastated by a deadly 7.2 earthquake killing over 220,000, injuring 300,000 and leaving 1.5 million people homeless. Following this tragedy, Haitians were cruelly struck with a cholera epidemic which killed another 3,597 people and sickened over 340,000 people.

With a lot of hard work, farm lands were beginning to produce, banana crops had recovered, livestock was healthy and growing and while there was still a long way to go, the Haitian people kept on with their struggle to survive. Then, on October 4th, 2016, Hurricane Matthew arrived, and Haiti was slammed with 145 mph winds and torrential rains. When it was over, almost a thousand people had lost their lives, 90% of the homes were heavily damaged or destroyed, entire communities gone, 80% of all crops blown away leaving farm lands looking like landfills filled with trash and debris, and leaving 1.4 million people in desperate need of emergency aid.

According to a recent article in Washington Post, Matthew has left 800,000 Haitians in desperate need of food. Along the roads, starving children beg for something to eat. Homeless families sleep under trees. Emergency help is arriving, but there is not enough of it. The United Nations has raised just a third of the $120 million needed to cope with the emergency. Storm-hit areas have reported around 3,500 suspected cholera cases.

A boy drinks water as he receives treatment for cholera at the Immaculate Conception Hospital in Les Cayes, Haiti, November 8, 2016. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

Haiti Country Director Hervil Cherubin, “Loss of crops, livestock, and housing will cause a real disaster in the coming months. People will not have food to eat or the ability to create income as there are no crops to sell. This will create a huge problem in rural Haiti if something is not done to help the agriculture in the next three months.”

The damage in Haiti is monumental, causing unrelenting hunger, no shelter, and no safe drinking water. Those that have gone to Haiti to offer assistance are begging for our help.

Morningside’s amazing friend, Gary Heavin, has been there on the ground and in the air, delivering food and supplies to places so devastated that it is impossible to get there by road! There are no overwhelming offers of support from the world and the media has basically gone silent. Recently, Pastor Jim Skyped with Gary on The Jim Bakker Show and he had this to say on the conditions he has seen with his own eyes:

“Jim, I have been here 12 days now. And, it looks like Hiroshima. I am calling this a hidden holocaust because no one knows about it. There are 1.4 million people that are under tremendous stress right now and almost no help! I am here with three of my aircrafts. We are flying in, food, water, and doctors. In two of the cities, my aircraft was the only evacuation for people that have been injured in this hurricane. We have been flying men, women and children with severe injuries to get medical help. My aircraft is the only source of food for 4,000 people that are stranded on a mountaintop. Jim & Lori, thank you for the food that you sent! That was the first food that 4,000 starving people received. We are the only source of food for these people!”

Gary Heavin is a man who tells it like it is. The desperation of the Haitian people has filled his heart. It is from your generosity that we were able to send with him Food Buckets, Extreme Water Bottles and Flashlights! But it is up to all of us, as God’s people, to do MORE! Deuteronomy 15:11 “For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, ‘You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.’

Liface Luc, 66, poses for a photograph in his destroyed house after Hurricane Matthew hit Jeremie, Haiti, October 15, 2016. “I don’t need to say nothing, my house explains everything. It’s completely flat. I lost everything; my crops, my animals, so I have nothing left. It’s like my two hands had been cut. What can I say? I’m at death’s door,” said Luc. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

Because we have these connections in Haiti, we know that our food is reaching those that desperately need it! If you would like to help please click here and visit our Help for Haiti page.

We have so many blessings! Please keep the aid workers and people of Haiti in your prayers!

North Carolina estimates $1.5 billion in hurricane damage to buildings

An aerial view shows flood waters after Hurricane Matthew in Lumberton, North Carolina

(Reuters) – North Carolina emergency officials have estimated that the destructive and deadly Hurricane Matthew caused $1.5 billion worth of damage to more than 100,000 homes, businesses and government buildings in the state.

The state’s Department of Public Safety said in a release issued on Saturday that county and state officials were still surveying the damage left behind by the storm.

The department also said more than 33,000 applications for individual assistance to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have been filed and $12.4 million has been approved.

The death toll from Hurricane Matthew stands at 26 in North Carolina, with two more bodies recovered on Saturday as some flood waters receded.

More than 30 deaths in the United States have been blamed on Matthew, which dumped more than a foot (30 cm) of water on inland North Carolina last week. Before hitting the southeast U.S. coast, the fierce storm killed around 1,000 people in Haiti.

On Sunday, North Carolina’s public safety department forecast that all rivers would be below flood levels by October 24, though there was still major flooding in several areas.

In Princeville, believed to be the oldest U.S. town incorporated by freed slaves, water surged to house roof lines on Thursday.

Statewide, power outages had fallen to 2,521 customers by Sunday afternoon, down from more than 800,000 customers without power last Sunday.

In one sign that the crisis was easing, the department only recorded three water rescues between Saturday and Sunday, bringing the total number of rescues to 2,336. The department said 32 shelters are open and are serving nearly 2,200 displaced people.

A total of 570 roads remained closed in the state because of damage from the flooding.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Hurricane Matthew closes schools for thousands of Haiti’s children

By Makini Brice

LES CAYES, Haiti (Reuters) – As Haiti cleans up the destruction wrought by Hurricane Matthew, which killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed thousands of homes, the storm has also disrupted the education of many school children in the country.

School has resumed for students in many parts of Haiti that escaped the worst of Matthew’s wrath, but an estimated 100,000 children are missing class after their schools were either reduced to rubble or converted to makeshift shelters.

In battered Les Cayes in southwest Haiti, many whose homes were blown away by Matthew remain holed up in Dumarsais Estime National School, meaning children were unable to resume class.

Bernadette Saint-Louis, a 38-year-old hawker of bananas and beans, said she came to the shelter with her four children as the storm approached.

Like her, many who lost everything to the hurricane had little if any money to send their children to school – and little option when nearby schools had been knocked down.

“Only God knows what I will do for them,” she said. “I have nothing to live on.”

While the capital, Port-au-Prince, sustained little lasting damage from the hurricane, the damage to schools along Haiti’s southern coast has raised questions about how to resume the school year in the area.

At least 300 schools in the region were destroyed or were being used as shelters, meaning over 100,000 children were missing class, UNICEF said.

Education in Haiti is a political hot-button issue ahead of a looming presidential election, which has been delayed again by the storm. Virtually every major presidential candidate has promised to expand access to schooling.

At the start of the school year in September, amid persistently high unemployment, inflation and stagnant economic growth, the cost of school fees, books and uniforms was a major topic in local media for weeks.

Interim President Jocelerme Privert cited the damage to schools in an interview on Tuesday. “We must find a way to make them functional,” he said.

That is also the hope of Haitian school director Jean-Emmanuel Pierre-Louis. Shortly after the storm passed over the area, he stood in the remains of his office in the Centre of Classical Training College of Port Salut.

The damage was severe. The private school, which had been built on the side of the mountain where teachers and students had views of green, rolling hills, no longer had a roof and chunks of its walls were now rubble scattered across the floor.

Pierre-Louis pointed to a periodic table of elements, all that was left of the chemistry lab. Files of some of the 350 students had been laid out to dry on surfaces under the sun.

Salvaged benches sat stacked outside. The remains of some classrooms were too precarious to venture into.

Pierre-Louis’ home was destroyed by the hurricane, as were those of family members and students.

“What will we do with the students if the state and the international community does not intervene?” he asked.

(Editing by Simon Gardner and Peter Cooney)

Historic town swamped, 22 dead in North Carolina flooding

By Jonathan Drake

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.

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.

(Additional reporting and writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Tom Brown)

Drownings push hurricane death toll to 19 in flooded North Carolina

Flooding waters of theTar River cover the Riverwalk Apartments due to rainfall caused from Hurricane Matthew in Greenville, North Carolina,

By Nicole Craine

KINSTON, N.C. (Reuters) – Rivers swollen by rainfall from Hurricane Matthew rose dangerously higher in North Carolina on Wednesday, prompting officials to go door to door urging residents to leave as a wide swath of the state faced its worst flooding in 17 years.

Floodwaters have swamped areas across the central and eastern part of the state, where drownings in recent days have brought the death toll to 19.

That figure represents more than half of the deaths in the U.S. Southeast linked to the fierce Atlantic storm, which killed around 1,000 people in Haiti and displaced hundreds of thousands as it tore through the Caribbean last week.

Matthew caused an estimated $10 billion in total U.S. property losses, about $5 billion of which are insured, according to a preliminary estimate by Goldman Sachs.

The damages continue to mount in North Carolina. Flooding has killed up to 5 million poultry birds, most of them chickens, in a blow to the local economy, said North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Donald van der Vaart.

The floodwaters have forced more than 3,800 residents to flee to shelters, closed down stretches of major interstate highways and shuttered 34 school systems, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory told reporters in Raleigh.

Emergency officials rescued dozens of people on Wednesday from flooded homes in areas including Robeson and Pender counties. There were no official estimates as to the number of people and homes still in harm’s way in the state.

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 at almost twice the 14-foot (4.3 meter) flood stage and just shy of the Floyd record, city officials warned residents not to be fooled by the water’s gradual rise.

“It’s not like it’s a tidal wave that’s coming. It’s a slow rise,” city manager Tony Sears said in a phone interview.

But, he added, “in the next 24 hours, it’s not whether I should go or not, it’s when you should go.”

Residents should be prepared to be out of their homes for more than a week, Sears said, with river levels expected to remain elevated into next week.

Nazareth Gray (4) sits on the edge of a cot at the Carver Heights Elementary School shelter after her and her grandmother Margaret (not pictured) were displaced by the effects of Hurricane Matthew in Goldsboro, North Carolina, U.S. October 12, 2016. REUTERS/Randall Hill

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 (3 meters) 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.

In Goldsboro, where the Neuse River peaked on Wednesday at a record level, Tony Rouse, 56, had taken refuge at an elementary school with his wife. His home lost power and all the roads leading to it were inundated, he said.

“It’s kind of boring,” he said of life at the shelter, “but it beats not being able to eat.”

(Additional reporting by Gene Cherry; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott and Tom Brown)

Death toll climbs as floods swamp North Carolina after Hurricane Matthew

rescue workers during floods in North Carolina

(Adds additional death and other details on flooding)

By Carlo Allegri and Gene Cherry

LUMBERTON, N.C./KINSTON, N.C., Oct 11 (Reuters) – Flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew has displaced several thousand people in North Carolina, and authorities were helping more evacuate on Tuesday 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 (1.2 meters) 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.

WORST FLOODING SINCE FLOYD

Matthew dumped more than a foot (30 cm) of rain in areas of North Carolina already soaked from heavy September rainfall. Ithas 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 (8 meters) 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.

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein and Joseph Ax; Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott, Tom Brown and Bill Rigby)

Rivers swollen by Hurricane Matthew inundate North Carolina towns

A flooded church is pictured after Hurricane Matthew passes in Lumberton, North Carolina

By Gene Cherry

KINSTON, N.C. (Reuters) – Authorities in North Carolina helped residents evacuate on Tuesday as floodwaters inundated some towns and threatened others in the aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, which killed 14 people in the state.

Governor Pat McCrory, who announced the new death toll, warned of “extremely dangerous” conditions in the next 72 hours in central and eastern parts of North Carolina, where several rivers are in major flood stage and nearing record levels.

Wendy Key, 40, fled with her six children to a shelter in Kinston to escape flooding from the Neuse River, located about a mile from their rented home, which she had just redecorated and stocked with a new refrigerator and stove. Her brother told her the water was now waist-deep in the house.

“The water started coming pretty quickly and we had to get up and get ready in no time,” Key said. “It was very alarming and disturbing.”

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 killing more than 20 people in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.

The storm dumped more than a foot (30 cm) of rain in areas of North Carolina already soaked from heavy September rainfall, prompting concern that the state could see its worst flooding since Hurricane Floyd in September 1999.

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

The flooding from Matthew prompted President Barack Obama to declare on Monday that a major disaster exists in North Carolina, making federal recovery funding available in 31 counties, McCrory said.

Emergency officials have conducted more than 2,000 rescues in the state, where 32 school systems are closed, major highways remain blocked and nearly 4,000 people have taken refuge in shelters.

Officials are monitoring a number of overtopped or breaching dams in addition to the threat of inland flooding from rivers, the governor’s office said.

Two of the additional deaths reported by McCrory on Tuesday were of people found in vehicles submerged in water. Three people are considered missing, he said.

The governor urged residents to heed evacuation orders and to avoid driving through flooded areas.

“Too many people have died,” he told reporters at the state’s Emergency Operations Center in Raleigh. “And we don’t want any more to die.”

He said a man was fatally shot by a state highway patrol officer in Lumberton on Monday night after a confrontation occurred during rescue efforts in a flooded area.

McCrory said he did not yet have full details about the incident, which is being investigated by state police.

(Writing by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Bill Trott)

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