UPDATES Sunday afternoon:
The North Carolina DOT is still show the jaw-dropping warning below about much of I-95 being closed due to flooding within NC. Also most roads south of I-64 and east of I-73-74 in NC. Parts of I-95 in the northern part of SC is also closed due to flooding, between Fayetteville, NC, and Florence, SC.
Here and there, I-26 in SC, especially around Columbia, is closed due to downed trees and/or power lines.
For a detailed list of NC roads that are closed, go here. It’s not the easiest to read list or map, but it’s the NC Dot.
Here’s the current map of closures in SC from the SC DOT. Not all the red dots are storm related. A few are construction-related. But most are from the storm, either flooding or downed power lines and trees.
For the most current information about road closings in SC, go here.
South Carolina officials are giving a press conference now warning of flash flooding in SC, especially in the midlands, now, and that river flooding is expected over the next week, especially in the Waccamaw and Little Pee Dee River, which are in the northestern part of SC, roughly between Myrtle Beach and I-95.
This tells the story. Three days of record rain, still not ending.
Rivers and streams flooding or at risk for flooding in the next few days:
Scary erosion under a road:
The National Hurricane Center has discontinued updates on Florence, as of Sunday morning, when it finally became a tropical depression instead of a tropical storm. But here’s a rainfall map I pulled off Twitter Sunday afternoon.
Purple area of 20+ inches of rain is huge.
FROM VERY EARLY SUNDAY MORNING: It’s still raining in North Carolina early Sunday morning. It really hasn’t stopped since Hurricane Florence’s outer bands first came ashore near Wilmington Thursday morning. Flooding has moved inland and is expected to get worse.
Meteorologist Greg Carbin of the National Weather Service on Saturday night:
CNN reporting from NC officials:
"The one thing I want to prevent is thousands of people stranded on our interstates or US routes," said state Transportation Secretary Jim Trogdan.
A 73-mile stretch of the highway closed Saturday because of flooding and an accident involving a tractor-trailer.
Officials warned the flooding was only just starting.
"The flood danger from this storm is more immediate today than when it ... made landfall 24 hours ago," North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Saturday morning. "We face walls of water at our coasts, along our rivers, across our farmland, in our cities and in our towns."
This is the holy-shit bulletin put out by the NC Department of Transportation:
TRAVEL EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS ACROSS NORTH CAROLINA
Travel is hazardous in North Carolina on all roads south of US 64 and east of I-73/74. Motorists should not drive in these areas.
GPS systems are routing users into areas NCDOT is not recommending for travel.
To avoid North Carolina if traveling south on I-95 drivers should use I-64 West in Virginia to I-81 south, to I-75 south in Tennessee to I-16 East in Georgia back to I-95.
This is an extremely long detour, but it is the detour that offers the lowest risk of flooding at this time.
Through traffic from I-95 in Georgia is advised to use I-16 West to I-75 North to I-81 North to I-64 East back to I-95 in Virginia.
If you are already in North Carolina on I-95 you may use US 64 west to I-540 west to I-40 west to I-85 south into South Carolina.
Follow South Carolina DOT instructions to return to I-95.
Conditions are constantly changing please check back before you travel.
The thing about saying it’s too dangerous to drive in much of NC tonight is that they’ve also put out new evacuation orders for areas of central NC, so I’m not sure if people are supposed to hope their houses don’t flood overnight or risk getting on the roads.
Note the National Hurricane Center’s current -- for Saturday going into Sunday morning — map of predicted rainfall, maroon, 20+ inches (highest totals I’ve seen so far are 36 inches near the coast) and the hot pink, 15-20 inches, reddish orange 10-15 inches.
We thought Florence was moving at a snail’s pace as she got close to making landfall, moving at only 5 mph, but on Saturday, she started crawling for much of the day at less than 2 mph, meaning that with her large wind field and rain bands, it was still raining in WIlmington, Myrtle Beach and in a wide swath of NC and SC between Myrtle Beach and Florence, SC.
The longer she sits over top a particular area, the longer she has to drop horrendous amounts of water.
Note the large areas of both states facing a high risk of flash flooding:
The Cape Fear River in Fayetteville was at 15.4 feet on Saturday, flood level is 35 feet. It’s expected to crest on Tuesday at 62 feet. That will mean the river is almost three and a half feet higher than it was during Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which caused extensive flooding.
NC Department of Transportation advisory on rivers expected to flood:
Roads are washing out.
If that isn’t enough — Duke Power reports a failure in its coal ash storage areas and that waste is spilling into flood waters.
See Florence practically stand still: