The Latest: Florence downgraded to tropical storm

WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — The Latest on Hurricane Florence (all times local):
4:50 p.m.
Forecasters say Florence is now a tropical storm but will continue to threaten North and South Carolina with powerful winds and catastrophic freshwater flooding.
Its top sustained winds have dropped to 70 mph (110 kph), and it’s at a near standstill, moving west at just 3 mph (6 kph).
At 5 p.m., Florence was centered about 50 miles (75 kilometers) west-southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, and about 25 miles (45 kilometers) northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles (280 kilometers) from its center. The National Hurricane Center says Florence is producing tropical storm-force wind gusts in Florence, South Carolina, about 60 miles from the coast.
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4:25 p.m.
South Carolina’s most popular tourist destination is riding out Hurricane Florence without major problems so far.
In North Myrtle Beach, rain has been falling nearly all day and tree branches and limbs are on some roads. The power is out on the main strip, but almost no vehicles are on the six-lane highway through the center of town other than police.
North Myrtle Beach spokesman Pat Dowling says three-quarters of the area’s 37,000 electric customers are without power.
To the south, Myrtle Beach was faring better. Power outages were spotty, and Myrtle Beach spokesman Mark Kruea says no significant property damage has been reported.
No areas in South Carolina reported problems with surge from the ocean as winds continued from the land pushing water away.
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4:05 p.m.
President Donald Trump is preparing to travel to areas affected by Hurricane Florence next week.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says Trump will travel to the region “early to middle of next week.”
She adds his trip will take place “once it is determined his travel will not disrupt any rescue or recovery efforts.”
Aides say Trump has been monitoring the massive storm from the White House, and he has taken to Twitter to encourage those in its path to listen to their local authorities for how best to remain safe.
The storm, blamed for at least three fatalities, has inundated parts of the Carolina coast with heavy rain and high winds.
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3:05 p.m.
A mother and infant in North Carolina are dead after a tree fell on their home – the first two fatalities of Hurricane Florence.
The Wilmington Police Department said Friday that the two were killed when a tree fell on their house. The father was transported to a hospital for treatment. No other information was given.
The hurricane came ashore early Friday, pounding the state with torrential rain and high winds.
Forecasters have been predicting catastrophic flash flooding. The National Hurricane Center in Miami says more than 16 inches of rain have fallen at locations in southeast North Carolina and another 20 to 25 inches is on the way.
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2 p.m.
A weakening Hurricane Florence is almost at a standstill over southeastern North Carolina.
It just barely has Category 1 hurricane strength with top sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph).
At 2 p.m., Florence was centered about 35 miles (55 kilometers) west-southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, and about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east-northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was crawling west at 5 mph (7 kph).
The National Hurricane Center said Florence was forecast to keep moving farther inland across the Carolinas through the weekend before turning toward the central Appalachian Mountains early next week.
Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 35 miles (55 kilometers) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 170 miles (280 kilometers).
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1:30 p.m.
The National Weather Service says 14 to 15 inches of rain has already fallen north of Swansboro, North Carolina and it’s only going to get worse.
Weather Prediction Center senior forecaster David Roth said catastrophic flash flooding is expected to continue to worsen Friday.
He said that the heavy rainfall for southeast North Carolina is only one-third to one-quarter the way over.
“Plenty of heavy rain remains in the future for this region,” Roth wrote in the weather center’s rain forecast discussion.
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1 p.m.
Flights are grounded at several airports in the Southeast as Hurricane Florence barges through the region.
By midday Friday, airlines had canceled more than 2,100 U.S. flights from the storm’s approach on Wednesday through Sunday, according to tracking service FlightAware.
The region’s two largest airports, in Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, had more than 200 cancellations on Friday. That’s about half the flights in Raleigh and one in eight at Charlotte.
That’s not much compared with last year’s Hurricane Harvey, which flooded runways at two major airports and caused airlines to scrub more than 11,000 flights in Houston alone.
The Federal Aviation Administration says Charleston International Airport in South Carolina isn’t expected to reopen until Monday night. Wilmington International in North Carolina expects to reopen at noon Saturday.
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12:25 a.m.
Florence’s total rainfall will likely be staggeringly huge.
Meteorologist Ryan Maue (MOW-ee) of weathermodels.com calculates that Hurricane Florence is forecast to dump about 18 trillion gallons of rain in seven days over the Carolinas and Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Maryland.
That doesn’t quite measure up to the 25 trillion gallons Harvey dropped on Texas and Louisiana last year. Maue says Harvey stalled longer and stayed closer to the coast, which enabled it to keep sucking moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.
Still, 18 trillion gallons is as much water as there is in the entire Chesapeake Bay. It’s enough to cover the entire state of Texas with nearly four inches (10 centimeters) of water.
That much rain is 2.4 trillion cubic feet (68 billion cubic meters). It’s enough to cover Manhattan with nearly 3,800 feet (1.1 kilometers) of water, more than twice as high as the island’s tallest building.
North Carolina alone is forecast to get 9.6 trillion gallons, enough rain to cover the Tar Heel state in about 10 inches (25 centimeters) of water.
Maue calculates that 34 million people will get at least 3 inches, with more than 5.7 million getting at least a foot and about 1.5 million getting 20 inches or more.
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11:55 a.m.
U.S. immigration officials say they won’t do any active enforcement during evacuations or in shelters during Hurricane Florence.
Homeland Security officials say Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are focused on the preservation of life and safety.
The Trump administration has stepped up arrests of people living in the country illegally, but during this storm they say they won’t enforce immigration laws unless there’s a serious public safety threat.
Immigration officers have been dispatched to help with response and recovery as Florence lashes North and South Carolina with life-threatening winds, rain and floods.
But Jeff Byard of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says saving lives is the priority, and anyone fearing for their safety should call 911 for help. Federal officials say they don’t want people to fear going to shelters.
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11:45 a.m.
North Carolina officials say parts of the state could experience a once-in-a-millennia flood as Hurricane Florence dumps rain for days to come.
Gov. Roy Cooper said Friday that Florence is “wreaking havoc” and he’s concerned “whole communities” could be wiped away.
He said parts of the state have seen storm surges as high as 10 feet.
Transportation Secretary Jim Trogdon said the state is expecting 1,000-year “flood events” in areas between Wilmington and Charlotte.
Cooper said the state hasn’t seen any Florence-related fatalities so far, but he’s concerned about people’s safety as the storm continues.
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11 a.m.
Forecasters say the center of Hurricane Florence is hovering just inland near Cape Fear, North Carolina.
It remains a Category 1 hurricane with top sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph), but stronger wind gusts have been reported.
At 11 a.m., Florence was centered about 20 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, and about 55 miles (90 kilometers) east-northeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was crawling west-southwest at 3 mph (6kph), lifting huge amounts of ocean moisture and dumping it far from the coast.
Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 195 miles (315 km).
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10:40 a.m.
Rising water forced a North Carolina TV station to evacuate its newsroom in the middle of Hurricane Florence coverage.
Hours before the storm made landfall Friday, workers at New Bern’s WCTI-TV NewsChannel 12 had to abandon their studio.
A spokesperson for the ABC affliciate said roads around the building were flooding.
The weater service later measured a storm surge 10 feet deep in the city, which lies on the Neuse River near the Atlantic coast. It’s about 90 miles (145 kilometers) northeast of Wrightsville Beach, where Florence made landfall at 7:15 a.m. Friday.
Video posted on Twitter showed a meteorologist telling viewers they’d be taken to coverage from sister station WPDE in Myrtle Beach.
Just after midnight, the station tweeted that everyone had safely evacuated.
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10:15 a.m.
Rivers are rising on the north side of Hurricane Florence as the storm swirls counter-clockwise, pushing a surge of ocean water far in from the coast.
Rainfall also is swelling waterways: Meteorologist Ryan Maue of weathermodels.com calculated that 34 million people in the U.S. are forecast to get at least 3 inches of rain from Hurricane Florence, with more than 5.7 million people probably getting at least a foot of rain.
In Washington, North Carolina, the wind-swept Pamlico River has risen beyond its banks and is flooding entire neighborhoods. Floodwaters submerged U.S. Highway 264, cutting off a major route to other flood-prone areas along the river and the adjacent Pamlico Sound.
Downtown New Bern, on the Neuse River also is flooded. The city tweeted early Friday that 150 people were awaiting rescue.
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10 a.m.
Federal officials are urging anyone who ignored orders to evacuate from Hurricane Florence to hunker down and stay put until the storm passes.
And they say people who are truly in an emergency should call 911, not just Tweet about it.
The disaster area was expected to get about as much rain in three days as the 1999 Dennis and Floyd storms dropped in two weeks.
About 9,700 National Guard troops and civilians have been deployed, with high-water vehicles, helicopters and boats. The Army Corps of Engineers were preparing to start work restoring power, installing temporary roofing and removing debris.
Charley English of the American Red Cross said anyone wondering how to help from afar can donate blood, registering first at their local Red Cross websites.
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9:30 a.m.
Wind speeds are kicking up far from the coast in central South Carolina as Hurricane Florence slowly makes its way along the coast.
The National Weather Service reported wind gusts of up to 21 mph (34 kph) on Friday morning in Columbia.
That’s about 220 miles (354 kilometers) from Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, where Florence made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane at 7:15 a.m. Friday, coming ashore along a mostly boarded-up, emptied-out stretch of coastline.
Wind gusts as high as 60 mph (96 kph) were recorded in the Myrtle Beach area.
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9:10 a.m.
Forecasters say the eye of Hurricane Florence is wobbling slowly southwestward just off the coast of southeastern North Carolina, near the border with South Carolina.
The hurricane’s top sustained winds have dropped to 85 mph (140 kph), while it moves slowly toward South Carolina at 6 mph (9 kph).
At 9 a.m. the center of the hurricane was about 55 miles (90 kilometers) east of Myrtle Beach.
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9 a.m
Energy Secretary Rick Perry says the U.S. electricity sector has been well prepared for Hurricane Florence even as hundreds of thousands of homes lose power in the storm.
Speaking during a visit to Moscow less than an hour after the hurricane made landfall in North Carolina, Perry says “we’ve done this many times before. We know how to manage expectations. We know how to prepare our plants for these types of major events.”
Perry says his department has been in contact with power companies and gas pipeline operators. He says that “over the years the state government and the federal government have become very coordinated in their ability to manage the pre-deployment of assets (and) the response to the citizens of those states, and we will soon be into the recovery.”
More than 415,000 homes and businesses were without power, mostly in North Carolina, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks the nation’s electrical grid.
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8:15 a.m.
Hurricane Florence is dumping rain on North Carolina and pushing a storm surge taller than most humans onto communities near the coast.
The center of the eye of the hurricane made landfall in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, and was moving slowly westward just south of Wilmington.
Coastal and river communities on the north side of Florence are getting the worst of the flooding as the hurricane swirls onto land pushing a life-threatening storm surge.
More than 415,000 homes and businesses were without power Friday morning according to poweroutage.us, which tracks the nation’s electrical grid.
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7:45 a.m.
The National Hurricane Center says Hurricane Florence has finally made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.
The Miami-based center says the center of the eye moved ashore with top sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph), making Florence a Category 1 hurricane in terms of wind intensity.
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7:15 a.m.
Forecasters say the center of the eye of Hurricane Florence is about to make landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.
It remains a Category 1 hurricane with top sustained winds of 90 mph (150 kph), but a gust of 112 mph (180 kph) was reported just offshore.
The barrier island of Emerald Isle is under water, with ocean waves rolling in over a six-foot storm surge and crashing into homes.
At 7 a.m., the center of the eye was located about 5 miles (10 kilometers) east of Wilmington, moving west at 6 mph.
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7 a.m.
It’s about the water, not the wind, with Hurricane Florence making an extended stay along the North Carolina coast.
Forecasters say “it cannot be emphasized enough that the most serious hazard associated with slow-moving Florence is extremely heavy rainfall, which will cause disastrous flooding that will be spreading inland.”
Top winds were holding at 90 mph — that’s just a Category 1 hurricane — but some communities were already submerged in more than six feet of water as the storm drenched the coast.
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6 a.m.
National Hurricane Center: Florence about to make landfall in N. Carolina causing life-threatening storm surge.
The National Hurricane Center says Florence is about to make landfall in North Carolina bringing with it life-threatening storm surges and hurricane force winds.
As of 6 a.m., Florence was 10 miles (20 kilometers) east of Wilmington, North Carolina. Its forward movement was 6 mph (9 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended 90 miles (150 kilometers) from its center, and tropical-storm-force winds up to 195 miles (315 kilometers).
The Miami-based center says Florence is bringing “catastrophic” fresh water flooding over a wide area of the Carolinas.
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5:50 a.m.
A North Carolina city says about 70 people have been rescued from a hotel whose structural integrity is being threatened by Hurricane Florence.
The city of Jacksonville’s statement says people have been moved to the city’s public safety center as officials work to find a more permanent shelter.
Officials found a basketball-sized hole in the hotel wall and other life-threatening damage, with some cinder blocks crumbling and parts of the roof collapsing.
None of the people rescued were injured.
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5:00 a.m.
The National Hurricane Center says Florence is about to make landfall in North Carolina bringing with it life-threatening storm surges and hurricane force winds.
As of 5 a.m., Florence was 25 miles (55 kilometers) east of Wilmington, North Carolina. Its forward movement was 6 mph (9 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended 90 miles (150 kilometers) from its center, and tropical-storm-force winds up to 195 miles (315 kilometers).
The Miami-based center had said earlier Friday Florence’s arrival would come with “catastrophic” fresh water flooding over portions of the Carolinas.
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4:25 a.m.
A North Carolina city situated between two rivers says it has around 150 people waiting to be rescued from rising flood waters from Hurricane Florence.
WXII-TV reports the city of New Bern said Friday that two out-of-state FEMA teams were working on swift-water rescues and more teams were on the way. City spokeswoman Colleen Roberts tells WRAL-TV that 200 people have already been rescued.
The National Hurricane Center says the Neuse River near the city is recording more than 10 feet (3.05 meters) of inundation. Roberts says the storm surge continues to increase as Florence passes over the area.
The city warns that people “may need to move up to the second story” but tells them to stay put as “we are coming to get you.”
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4 a.m.
The National Hurricane Center says the eyewall of Hurricane Florence is beginning to reach the North Carolina coast.
As of 4 a.m., Florence was 30 miles (45 kilometers) east of Wilmington, North Carolina. Its forward movement was 6 mph (9 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended 90 miles (150 kilometers) from its center, and tropical-storm-force winds up to 195 miles (315 kilometers).
Forecasters said conditions will deteriorate as the storm pushes ashore early Friday near the North Carolina-South Carolina line and makes its way slowly inland.
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3:30 a.m.
Life-threatening storm surge is being reported along the coast of the Carolinas.
The National Hurricane Center said early Friday that a gauge in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, recently reported 6.3 feet (1.92 meters) of inundation. Emerald Isle is about 84 miles (135 kilometers) north of Wilmington.
As of 3 a.m., Florence hadn’t moved and was still centered about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of Wilmington, North Carolina. Its forward movement increased slightly to 6 mph (9 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended 90 miles (150 kilometers) from its center, and tropical-storm-force winds up to 195 miles (315 kilometers).
Forecasters say the combination of a life-threatening storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline.
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2 a.m.
The National Hurricane Center says that “catastrophic” freshwater flooding is expected over portions of the Carolinas as Hurricane Florence inches closer to the U.S. East Coast.
The now Category 1 storm’s intensity diminished as it neared land, with winds dropping to 90 mph (135 kph) by nightfall. But that, combined with the storm’s slowing forward movement and heavy rains, had Gov. Roy Cooper warning of an impending disaster.
As of 2 a.m., Florence was centered about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of Wilmington, North Carolina. Its forward movement increased slightly to 6 mph (9 kph). Hurricane-force winds extended 90 miles (150 kilometers) from its center, and tropical-storm-force winds up to 195 miles (315 kilometers).
Forecasters say the combination of a life-threatening storm surge and the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline.
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11 p.m.
Hurricane Florence already has inundated coastal streets with ocean water and left tens of thousands without power, and more is to come.
Screaming winds bent trees and raindrops flew sideways as Florence’s leading edge battered the Carolina coast Thursday.
The storm’s intensity diminished as it neared land, with winds dropping to 90 mph (135 kph) by nightfall. But that, combined with the storm’s slowing forward movement and heavy rains, had Gov. Roy Cooper warning of an impending disaster.
Forecasters said Florence’s surge could cover all but a sliver of the Carolina coast under as much as 11 feet (3.4 meters) of ocean water, and days of downpours could unload more than 3 feet (0.9 meters) of rain, touching off severe flooding.