SOUTHEASTERN N.C. — Historic rainfall records are coming in from Monday’s storm, one that had nary a name or even a tropical storm classification. Yet, the flooding it left behind kept many people stranded — in homes, offices and schools, even vehicles.
READ MORE: Stormwater strategy amid historic flooding: CB councilman advocates for a modernized system
Joy Hollo and her husband, along with two couples, remained stuck in a condo overlooking Carolina Beach Lake on Tuesday morning. Their three cars are a total loss due to water reaching the door handles, as 20 inches of rain descended on the area.
“There is a mailbox that we’ve been looking at,” Hollo said Tuesday, noting 24 hours ago it was completely underwater. “Now, I would say it’s gone down maybe 15 inches.”
However, 2 and 3 miles north and south of the condo, roads are still blocked off due to flooding. An orange pump keeps black-tinged water rippling out into the ocean. Hollo said the group considered just gathering their items and attempting to walk to find an Uber in order to get back home to Burlington, North Carolina.
“But we would be almost waist-deep in water, still,” she said, also worried bacteria could be present due to stormwater runoff or live wires from felled poles or otherwise could be dangerous.
So the group is waiting it out, despite eating the last of their provisions; a single bag of pistachios is all that’s left.
Carolina Beach has always struggled with flooding, particularly on Canal Street, and during king tides events — one of which will take place Tuesday during a supermoon and partial lunar eclipse. However, slow-moving tropical cyclone eight, which was barreling north from South Carolina where it made landfall Monday evening, brought with it extreme rain bands earlier in the day — and no one was really prepared for it.
Forecasters were calling for upward of 8 inches of rain.
“It was bringing up with it south that deep tropical moisture and it provided a very good situation for heavy rain,” National Weather Service science officer Reid Hawkins told Port City Daily Monday. “We had a strong, low-pressure area, smaller, that formed on the front, and it helped produce that very, very heavy rain over parts of Brunswick and southern New Hanover County.”
He added that a warming climate and atmosphere will continue advancing these situations, which contribute to water inundation.
“More moisture in the atmosphere and the heat — that’s going to hurt, that’s the fuel that we need to produce these hits,” Hawkins said.
Not to mention there were multiple days of rain leading up to Sunday evening, when the system’s downpours began.
The last time Carolina Beach saw record flooding was in 2018 during Hurricane Florence’s deluge of 23 inches region wide over three days. But 18 inches in 12 hours, as received on portions of Pleasure Island, are unprecedented — a one-and-1,000-year event.
Hollo said her crew knew they were coming into a rainy weekend. She and her husband opened Hollo’s Bargains 4 U in Burlington in 2012 and treat staff to a “thank you vacation” annually. The tradition includes going to the stomping of the grapes at Duplin Winery and then spending a weekend at the beach. This year they chose Carolina Beach and were tucked away in a privately owned condo, conceding to spending time shopping and enjoying the restaurants, which they did all weekend.
The goal was to leave Monday, but sometime overnight Sunday the winds were howling and making the windows squeak.
“We barely slept,” Hollo said.
By 8:30 a.m. they assessed the situation as rain was coming down sideways and pooling about 6 inches in the carport, reaching the wheels of their vehicles. Hollo and her husband decided to wait for the downpour to subside, trepidatious to drive in it.
“Looking at the system, you could see it was just going straight towards Burlington,” Hollo said. “We were going to be in it all the way, you know, driving for two-and-a-half hours in this torrential rain.”
An hour later, water began accumulating more and moved up to the bottom of the vehicles’ doors. Two hours later, it reached the door handles.
“It just happened so fast,” Hollo said. “There’s sheds floating around. There’s benches from the park across the street that had picnic tables. They all floated away. I mean, it’s just crazy. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Siding also peeled off her friend’s condo, which Hollo said had been newly upfitted, but now speckled by water damage on the ceiling.
“We have about 15 pieces of siding piled in the kitchen right now,” she said.
The group began making calls immediately to their insurance companies who will have to tow their totaled vehicles. Along with closing their business for multiple days now, it could set back the family tens of thousands, if not more, in financial losses.
“I just feel bad for people traveling to our store today,” Hollo added, noting inventory that was supposed to arrive had to be put on hold. “We have customers travel to us from across the state, even Wilmington, as we have become so well-known for our baking supply goods.”
They have secured rental cars to travel home, though Hollo’s son offered to procure a large truck to reach his parents. Hollo said she has seen multiple high water vehicles making rescues throughout Carolina Beach in the last 24 hours. But the group has refrained from calling for one, as they have to wait for water to recede to clean out their cars first and finish documenting damage.
According to Mayor Lynn Barbee, emergency crews Monday helped upward of 100 people either with transportation or rescues, as well as a dozen animals, and received almost 100 calls for service. In addition to Carolina Beach’s fire and police departments on call, emergency personnel from Wilmington Fire Department and New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office also were deployed to help.
In Brunswick County, rescues also were being made, as flooded roads, closures and collapses were happening at a significant rate Monday evening. Though, the county is unclear currently exactly how many have been made as they’re ongoing. However, hundreds of cars were lined up along U.S. 17, beginning yesterday before lunch, with people stranded for 12 or more hours.
“At this time, there are no remaining travelers or cars stuck on US-17 due to flooding,” Brunswick County spokesperson Meagan Kascsak wrote in an email to Port City Daily after press. “There is no official estimate of how many were stranded, but the impact was significant.”
Social media posts indicated 16 teachers were stuck at Town Creek Elementary School in Winnabow, with others hunkering down in churches, daycare centers and even at Duke Energy’s plant near Southport.
Justin Parsons also slept in his office. A director for a local utility company, he tried to reach home, normally a 15-minute drive from Shallotte to Bolivia, on three separate occasions. Parsons lives near Sunset Harbor Road, which collapsed on N.C. 211 Monday. The first time he attempted to drive home, he waited for two hours on 211 before skirting through every back road possible to reach his wife and kids.
“I realized, I’m probably gonna put myself in harm’s way,” he said and attempted to get a hotel in Shallotte but the few he called were booked.
“But there’s a couch at work,” he said and headed back to his office.
He was eating his birthday cake in the break room when his wife, Kim, called.
“He went by and picked up his cake for me because I couldn’t leave the house Monday once the storm started,” she said Tuesday. “We were going to celebrate that night.”
Justin left early Monday morning to head into the office, despite the rain. Kim said he’s the type of person “who will never miss work — no matter what.”
Water began surrounding their neighborhood, causing impassibility on nearby roads. It’s still flooded as of Tuesday.
Kim’s main concern right now is her son who has autism and is visited by a therapist frequently; he won’t be able to continue his appointments due to officials asking people to stay off the roads.
Justin said he was able to make it home Tuesday afternoon on a secondary road that leads to their neighborhood. Zion Hill Road was flooded Monday but down to one lane today; he called driving over it “sketchy” at best.
“I told my wife, one of the reasons I wanted to get home was I’m worried about the roads,” Justin said, pointing to another that collapsed at Generations Church on Southport-Supply SE Road Monday.
Even driving down U.S. 17 this morning, he recalled during his second attempt home, everything looked “post apocalyptic.” Gas station parking lots were overrun with vehicles. Many aligned the side of the highway, empty of drivers and passengers.
“Cars were just abandoned,” Justin said. “It’s still kind of like that today, but some areas are clearing up. You’re seeing some progress.”
Erica Mee, a nurse for Brunswick County Department of Health and Human Services, was one of the people stuck on U.S. 17 for hours after the government center announced it would close by 11 a.m. Monday. Mee said she didn’t have an issue getting into work from Leland, 25 miles away, despite heavy rain. After wrapping up appointments with her patients, she was able to hit the road by 11:30 a.m.
“The whole complex was already flooded,” she said of the government center.
Mee reached the Golf Barn, roughly 5 miles north, before having to make a U-turn and head southbound again. She was stuck in traffic at U.S. 17 and Galloway Road for six hours.
“I was safe,” she said, “but I was literally stranded with nowhere to go.”
She ably made another U-turn eventually to go back northbound in hopes another route had opened after making no movement.
“There was barely anyone going northbound,” she said.
But she ended up waiting bumper-to-bumper with hundreds of others, 0.9 miles from an Exxon near N.C. Highway 87.
She said a Boar’s Head delivery driver gave out charcuterie to people who were waiting and had not eaten for hours. Mee said she was able to trek to the gas station, albeit in water, for gas, a charger and other necessities. Cars were packed into the station’s lot, with families, individuals and dogs gathering.
Once she was back in her car, she fell asleep; around 12:45 a.m. a fire truck, blaring its sirens, informed motorists an open route was found through Whiteville to U.S. 74/76. It took Mee two hours to get home “to the best shower and sleep” of her life.
“I’m a camper,” she said, “so I try to make the best of any situation. I’m normally not one to be on the road and I would have never left work had I known how bad the roads were going to be. I did not know it until I was out there — and it literally deteriorated so fast.”
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