Hundreds of residents who ignored evacuation orders before Hurricane Florence struck are now feeling remorse as the plead for rescue from first responders who are stretched to capacity and racing against time as floodwaters rise.
'I feel like the dumbest human being who ever walked the face of the earth,' said Tom Ballance, who owns a restaurant in New Bern, on his decision not to evacuate.
Swift-water rescue teams had saved more than 360 people in New Bern by midafternoon Friday, and another 140 were still waiting for help, a city spokeswoman said. The city was placed under mandatory evacuation orders prior to the storm, but many there and elsewhere chose to disregard the order.
New Bern, though not directly on the coast, was inundated by a massive 10-foot storm surge when the adjacent Neuse River burst its banks on Thursday night as Florence simultaneously dumped huge amounts of rain on the area - as much as 19.4 inches in nearby Morehead City.
Firefighters use a boat to rescue three people from their flooded home during the Hurricane Florence in New Bern on Friday
Robert Simmons Jr. and his kitten 'Survivor' are rescued from floodwaters in New Bern on Friday in the aftermath of Florence
Volunteers from all over North Carolina help rescue residents and their pets from their flooded homes in New Bern
Flooding from the heavy rain is forcing hundreds of people to call for emergency rescues in the area around New Bern, North Carolina, which sits at the confluence of the Nuese and Trent rivers
Ballance said his wife went to Atlanta and he stayed behind in their New Bern home with their three dogs and a cat. Around 3.30pm Thursday, the electricity went out. By midnight, his rain gauge showed that he'd gotten nine inches of rain since midafternoon. He drifted off to sleep.
About 40 minutes later, he woke and went to a sun room, where he'd boarded up all the windows except for a small hole. He shone a flashlight through the glass.
'I about jumped out of my skin,' he said in a phone interview Friday morning. 'These were waves crashing down.'
Those waves were coming from the Neuse River, which is about 25 feet away, and downhill, from his house. He made a plan B: If the water reached the house, he'd take the pets upstairs to the second floor.
'The water kept rising and kept rising,' he said.
But the water never quite made it to his home. Ballance called the rainfall 'biblical,' saying he's gotten reports from friends that his downtown seafood restaurant was flooded, just like the rest of the downtown.
More than 1.7 million people in North and South Carolina were under evacuation orders before Florence hit, but it's unclear how many of them decided to remain.
One of New Bern's signature bears sits in the middle of a flooded Front Street downtown after being displaced by floods
New Bern resident Teddie Davis checks on another one of the bears that was toppled and damaged by Hurricane Florence
A rescue team from the North Carolina National Guard 1/120th battalion evacuates a family as the rising floodwaters from Hurricane Florence threatens their home in New Bern on Friday
Rescue team members Sgt. Matt Locke (left) and Sgt. Nick Muhar (right) evacuates a family from floodwaters in New Bern
A rescue team from the North Carolina National Guard 1/120th battalion evacuates an elderly woman from her apartment as the rising floodwaters from Hurricane Florence threatens her home in New Bern on Friday
By Friday night, the center of the now tropical storm had drifted south of the border into South Carolina, raising fears that Myrtle Beach could be cut off from the mainland by flooding as authorities suspended emergency service.
On Friday, though, much of the rescue activity centered on New Bern, where officials kicked the famed Louisiana Cajun Navy out of town despite the huge backlog of rescue requests, saying they would be handled through official channels and by local volunteers.
The city of about 29,000, which was founded in the early 1700s and was briefly the state capital, is near the North Carolina coast and is bordered on the east and south, respectively, by two rivers, the Neuse and Trent.
Sixty-seven-year-old Sadie Marie Holt was among those rescued Friday in New Bern.
Holt, who has diabetes and clogged arteries, said she stayed for doctor's appointments that were canceled at the last minute. She tried to row out of her neighborhood Thursday night with a boat that was in her yard after her home began to flood, but had to retreat because of the poor conditions.
'The wind was so hard, the waters were so hard that, trying to get out, we got thrown into trailers. We got thrown into mailboxes. Houses. Trees,' Holt said.
Volunteers help rescue residents and their pets from their flooded homes in New Bern during Hurricane Florence on Friday
Volunteer rescuers are seen navigating the flooded streets of New Bern, where hundreds remained despite evacuation orders
Homes are flooded after a storm surge from Hurricane Florence flooded the Neuse River on Friday in New Bern
Boats pushed away from the dock are seen on a street during the passing of Hurricane Florence in the town of New Bern
Dawn Baldwin Gibson, 47, a minister and private school founder who lives on a farm closer to the coast in nearby Pamlico County and runs a Facebook page about weather in eastern North Carolina, had evacuated to New Bern to stay with family, thinking it would be a safer spot.
Gibson said Friday that while she and her family were safe, she and her husband had gotten around 75 calls and texts from others asking for help.
'And from that point, we started hearing where people were saying on phone calls, 'I love you,' to their family members because they were not sure they were going to get out of it alive,' she said Friday.
'It's like a bomb has gone off,' New Bern resident George Zaytoun told 'Good Morning America' on Friday. 'Everything around us is underwater.'
Zaytoun now regrets his decision to stay. 'I think we kind of let our guards down,' he said of his community's response to the storm's being downgraded before landfall.
The National Weather Service said flash flooding was expected to continue through the rest of Friday in New Bern and surrounding areas. A 24-hour curfew was in effect.
Roberts, the city spokeswoman, said preliminary estimates show about 4,300 residences and 300 commercial buildings had been damaged. She said that count is expected to increase significantly.
Firefighters use a boat to rescue three people from their flooded home during Hurricane Florence in New Bern
New Bern firefighters use a boat to rescue people from their flooded homes during Hurricane Florence
Rescuers bring residents to safety after they remained in the mandatory evacuation zone during Hurricane Florence
In other parts of the evacuation zones, residents were also left ruing their decision to stay, and wondering how they would escape.
Across the Neuse River from New Bern in Bayboro, resident Kim Dunn, the mother of a 10-month-old, a 3-year-old and an 8-year-old, said she made a decision to stay behind while others fled.
'We were trying to figure out if we had enough finances to get out and if we were to get out, were we going to be able to get back home. So we made a decision to stay,' she told ABC News. 'I don't know how long it's going to be before the water actually starts to come into the apartment.'
Trying to escape on Friday, she was trapped in her truck surrounded by rising water as her boyfriend and his cousin were stranded on a paddle boat less than a mile away.
The water was as high as street signs, and 'we have no way to get to them,' Dunn said.
'They've been out there for about six hours now just screaming for help,' she said. 'Only communication we have with them is just me flashing my lights to them and I think they have a flashlight they're flickering back to us.'
A family is stalled in water as they wait to be rescued during the passing of Hurricane Florence in the town of New Bern
Water from the Neuse river floods the streets during the passing of Hurricane Florence in the town of New Bern
About 75 miles southwest, in Sneads Ferry, resident Jeanette Rivera said staying put had seemed like a good idea until the devastation became clear on Friday.
'I'm really upset at myself for staying,' Jeanette Rivera, 47, told NBC News. 'I just want to get out of here.'
'Half my dock is floating,' she said. 'Our house is completely surrounded by the ocean on all sides. I feel like our house could go at any minute. ... We already have a foot of water in our garage and the neighbor's house is completely flooded out.'
'It's difficult for me to watch,' she said. 'Every angle that I look, I'm surrounded by ocean.'
In a Facebook post, Rivera explained that she and her husband had stayed behind because they expected the impact to be more like Hurricane Matthew in 2016, and because they feared looters raiding their home.
'Is it scary? Yes, have I cried you bet, have I said what the hell were we thinking, yup! But we’re here!' she wrote.
Link textbacklinkexchanges.com
https://textbacklinkexchanges.com/hundreds-of-residents-trapped-in-rising-florence-waters-plead-for-rescue/
News Pictures HUNDREDS of residents trapped in rising Florence waters plead for rescue
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